THE  BLACK  SWANS 


ALVIN    HOWARD    SANDERS 


The  Black  Swans 


The  Black  Swans 

And  Other  Friends 
Indoors  and  Out 


By 

Alvin  Howard  Sanders 

Author  of  "The  Road  to  Dumbiedykes,' 

"At  the  Sign  of  the  Stock  Yard  Inn." 

Editor  "The  Breeder's  Gazette." 


Chicago 
Breeder's  Gazette  Print 


Copyright,  1918 

Sanders  Publishing  Company 

All  Rights  Reserved 


Introduction 

THE  kindly  reception  given  a  little 
book  of  sketches  published  two  years 
ago  under  the  title  "The  Road  to  Dumbie- 
dykes"  must  be  my  only  apology  for  com- 
plying with  various  requests  from  perhaps 
over-partial  friends  to  prepare  a  companion 
volume  in  similar  vein.  The  first  was  sent 
forth  with  more  or  less  trepidation  because 
such  work  is  entirely  at  variance  with  the 
weightier  matters  that  have  for  so  many 
years  occupied  my  close  attention,  and  I  am 
equally  in  doubt  as  to  whether  or  not  the 
publishers  are  justified  in  permitting  "The 
Black  Swans"  to  see  the  light. 

Needless  to  say  both  are  merely  "by- 
products" of  idle  hours;  of  days  spent 
primarily  in  quest  of  rest  and  relaxation; 
just  rambling  thoughts  jotted  down  from 
time  to  time  with  no  particular  regard  to 
orderly  sequence,  and  with  slight  expecta- 
tion that  they  will  be  taken  very  seriously. 
Their  preparation  is  of  course  merely  a 
casual  manifestation  of  an  ever  ready  re- 
sponse to  the  lure  of  the  out-of-doors. 

THE  AUTHOR 


DUMBIEDYKES, 

October  15,  1918 


4S969'. 


«c  THOUGH  for  me  no  flocks  unnumbered, 
Grazing  Galliots  pastures  fair 
Breathe  heavily  beneath  their  swelling  fleeces, 
Still  I  at  least  am  free  from  care." 

—  HORACE. 


Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    THE    BUILDING    OF    THE 

NEST i 

II.    BEHIND  THE  BACKLOG     .  15 

III.  HALF-HOURS  WITH   MER- 

CURY AND  VULCAN   .    .  31 

IV.  Low  TIDES 45 

V.    THE  CASE  OF  KATE     .    .  61 

VI.    SMOKE  OF  THE  H-F  BAR  .  73 

VII.    TOLD  IN  THE  FIRELIGHT    .  89 

VIII.    "TicK-TocK"  TALK     .    .  103 

IX.    AN  AUGUST  NIGHT  ...  123 

X.    SOCKS  AND  FLOCKS  .    .    .  137 

XL    THE  PIG  IN  A  POKE    .    .  149 

XII.    A  PUMPKIN  AND  A  PRINCE  161 

XIII.  THE   FLAMES  THAT 

CLARIFY 179 

XIV.  A  FAREWELL  "HIKE"     .  189 
XV.     "TAPS"  ..;,.,  •!  .  203 


THE  BLACK  SWANS 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Building  of  the  Nest 

THE  world  goes  motoring  heedless 
by  along  a  narrow  country  road 
that  disappears  among  the  trees.  The 
vine-clad  walls,  the  moss-green  roof 
and  sheltering  oaks  accomplish  their 
intended  purpose.  The  little  white- 
arched  gateway  too  is  camouflaged  by 
all-embracing  shrubbery.  But  those 
who  care  and  enter  understandingly 
are  welcome  as  the  flowers  that  greet 
them  lovingly  as  they  pass  within. 
And  if  by  chance  you  wander  by  along 
a  walk  that  passes  on  the  opposite, 
the  sunset  side,  an  ivy-posted  snow- 
white  pergola  projected  from  the 

[i] 


The  Black  Swans 

greenery  will  lead  you  through  the 
hedge-row  to  the  door.  Those  burr- 
oak  trees  that  overhang  the  eaves  and 
guard  on  either  side  the  entrance-way, 
God  planted  many  years  ago  and 
waited.  Sooner  or  later  some  one  was 
certain  to  look  at  them  and  compre- 
hend. And  when  we  found  them  first 
I  knew  at  once  a  mile-stone  in  a  jour- 
ney had  been  set.  And  so  one  day 
there  came  into  the  world  our  Dumbie- 
dykes. 

Just  a  little  temple  in  a  grove! 
Just  a  little  shrine  at  which  the  deities 
that  rule  the  out-of-doors  are  wor- 
shipped. Just  a  little  place  to  call  a 
country  home!  Just  a  little  port  of 
friendly  call  for  those  who  have  it  on 
their  chart!  And  is  that  not  enough? 

No  acres  broad  extending  far  afield. 
No  great  red  barns  nor  cattle-yards 
nor  granaries;  no  silos,  plows  nor 
harvesters;  no  retinue  of  help  nor 
tenant  cottages !  Why  should  we  covet 
these?  For  on  the  outside  have  we 
[2] 


The  Building  of  the  Nest 


not  the  sunshine  and  the  storms,  the 
song  birds  and  the  stars;  and  have 
we  not  within  the  black  swans  with 
their  wings  of  fire,  the  friendly  old 
four-posted  clock  and  books  that  live 
through  all  the  generations? 

I  had  told  the  architect  first  of  all 
to  build  for  us  a  good  big  generous 
fireplace  with  a  chimney  that  would 
not  fail  to  draw;  and  then  put  walls 
around  it  surmounted  by  a  wide,  low 
roof  with  overhanging  eaves.  You 
will  see  the  point.  I  wanted  to  hear  in 
comfort  by  the  fire  the  rain  drops 
dripping  all  around  outside.  But  if 
you  are  ever  called  upon,  as  I  was 
after  the  little  patch  of  woodland  in 
the  rough  was  bought,  to  plan  the 
house  intended  for  a  snug  retreat  from 
city  sights  and  sounds,  do  not  make 
this  one  mistake.  Let  the  women-folk 
in  on  it  early.  If  you  don't  you  will 
have  to  do  so  at  some  little  extra  cost 
later  on,  as  I  did.  They  know  a  lot 
more  than  you  do — or  they  think 


The  Black  Swans 


they  do  —  which  in  all  arguments  af- 
fecting domestic  arrangements  comes 
to  the  same  thing,  and  usually  they 
will  be  right  and  you  will  be  wrong. 
So  compromise  matters  right  at  the 
outset  by  doing  just  what  they  tell 
you  to  do;  and  yet  in  giving  them  the 
reins  in  this  building  business  in  re- 
spect to  certain  things  in  which  they 
have  a  natural,  and  it  seems  an  in- 
herently intelligent  interest,  if  you 
have  a  hobby  of  your  own  just  insist 
upon  riding  it  yourself  while  they  are 
astride  their  own. 

It  so  happens  that  my  own  special 
obsession  in  this  home-making  proposi- 
tion is  an  open  fire,  and  in  this  par- 
ticular case  the  builder  to  my  mind 
has  scored  success  complete.  It  is  the 
best  fireplace  I  know.  It  is  broad 
and  deep  and  lets  me  do  the  smoking; 
and  I  will  also  add  that  the  creator 
of  our  little  design  did  really  well 
in  other  details.  The  outside  eleva- 
tion is  generally  well  regarded.  The 

[4] 


The  Building  of  the  Nest 


generous  porch,  the  living  room,  the 
stairs  and  sleeping  quarters  are  not 
seriously  faulted.  The  dining  room 
was,  and  is  yet,  small,  too  small  for 
general  entertaining,  but  there  are  but 
two  of  us  left  now,  and  with  the  lapse 
of  years  our  visitors  seem  to  be 
narrowing  down  to  just  a  few  of  those 
we  love  the  best,  so  that  the  very 
coziness  of  the  little  nook  contributes 
perhaps  whatever  charm  it  may  pos- 
sess. The  door  that  opens  towards  the 
little  garden  on  the  east  is  guarded  by 
mock  oranges  now  reaching  upward 
to  the  roof,  laden  each  May  with 
heavily  scented  bloom;  a  favored  leafy 
canopy  for  nesting  birds.  Along  the 
casements  on  the  south  rare  holly- 
hocks send  up  each  year  the  brilliant 
stalks  so  loved  by  busy  "bumble" 
bees. 

The  trouble  was  the  architect  and 
myself  both  forgot  about  the  kitchen. 
That  is,  I  forgot  it  altogether,  and  he 
very  nearly.  He  did  "come  to"  long 

[5] 


The  Black  Swans 


enough,  however,  to  provide  a  two-by- 
four  corner  somewhere  about  the  prem- 
ises which  I  remember  was  labeled  on 
the  blue  print  "Kitchen."  Billy  was 
in  the  hands  of  nurses  at  the  time  and 
more  interested  in  getting  well  than 
in  architectural  drawings,  and  as  we 
wanted  first  of  all  a  place  where  she 
could  soon  enjoy  the  sun  and  air 
during  a  prospectively  extended  con- 
valescence, I  gave  the  word  and  ground 
was  broken  for  the  big  fireplace,  kitch- 
enette and  all.  Needless  to  say  the 
original  culinary  department  in  later 
years  was  converted  into  a  generous 
butler's  pantry,  and  a  sure-enough 
kitchen  added,  where  Mary  now  pre- 
sides with  just  pride  in  commodious 
surroundings  and  sings,  as  she  works, 
the  song  that  first  made  Chauncey 
Olcott's  reputation. 

It  takes  two  hearts  to  make  a  home. 

Architecturally   speaking   the   kitchen 

is  one,  the  open  fire  the  other.    Both 

of  these  now  work  as  one  at  Dumbie- 

[6] 


The  Building  of  the  Nest 


dykes,  with   a  common  purpose — the 
comfort  of  those  they  serve. 

The  chimney  breast  that  forms  the 
setting  for  the  fires  I  love  so  well 
was  built  of  the  long  flat  two-by- 
twelve  inch  mottled  Roman  bricks. 
It  is  a  trifle  over  four  feet  high  and 
seven  and  a  half  in  width.  The  fire- 
place proper  is  four  by  two  feet  six. 
The  interior  depth  two  feet.  The  fire- 
floor,  of  the  same  brick,  set  on  edge, 
extends  outward  sixteen  inches  to  form 
the  hearth.  The  shelf  at  the  top  is  a 
twelve-inch  piece  of  oak  with  plain 
moulding  below,  without  carving  or 
ornamentation  of  any  sort.  The  pro- 
portions are  believed  to  be  good,  and 
the  general  effect  is  one  of  solidity  and 
practical  utility  for  the  purpose  in- 
tended. The  andirons  sweep  forward 
first,  then  back  and  out  again  in 
graceful  curves.  The  fender  is  of  iron 
and  a  big  steel  screen  arrests  the 
sparks.  And  then,  of  course,  tongs, 
poker,  shovel,  and  a  little  broom.  Just 

[7] 


The  Black  Swans 


why  the  shovel  I  do  not  know.  Per- 
haps some  one  uses  it.  I  never  do. 
The  ash-dump  relegates  the  shovel, 
I  should  say,  to  the  limbo  of  the  dino- 
saurian.  Anyhow,  I  don't  want  the 
ashes  all  removed. 

Each  newly  lighted  fire  should  be 
builded  always  on  the  memories  of  the 
last. 

And  now  about  the  swans,  our  two 
black  swans,  that  long  have  made 
their  home,  and  have  contributed  in 
no  small  degree  to  the  making  of  the 
home,  at  Dumbiedykes.  We  have 
never  had  detailed  information  as  to 
their  remote  origin;  nor  can  I  say  that 
we  have  had  any  special  curiosity 
upon  that  score.  Notwithstanding 
their  unusual  character,  it  has  sufficed 
to  know  that  they  came  to  us  with  the 
first  building  of  the  fire  upon  our 
hearth  and  still  remain  to  minister 
unceasingly  and  most  effectually  to 
our  peace  of  mind  and  bodily  comfort; 
and  the  darker  the  day  or  the  colder 
[8] 


The  Building  of  the  Nest 


the  world  outside  the  more  certain 
their  ready  response  to  our  appeal. 
Furthermore,  unlike  those  other  fabled 
ornithological  wonders,  the  great  rocs 
told  of  in  the  "Arabian  Nights," 
which  only  appeared  when  sent  for, 
these  swans  are  ever  with  us  and  are 
indeed  at  no  time  parted  from  one 
another.  In  fact,  they  are  inseparable, 
useless  each  without  the  other.  Year 
after  year  they  stand  patiently  side  by 
side  waiting  to  do  our  bidding,  and  the 
value  of  the  service  they  have  rendered, 
and  are  yet  to  render,  who  can  cal- 
culate? Assuredly  I  cannot. 

Men  who  are  supposed  to  know 
about  such  things  tell  me  that  these 
birds  probably  came  originally  from 
the  North.  They  have  even  gone  so 
far  as  to  assert  that  in  all  human  prob- 
ability they  hark  back  to  a  primeval 
home  located,  say  about  latitude  47° 
40"  north  and  longitude  93°  20"  west 
of  Greenwich,  and  if  you  will  turn  to 
your  map  you  will  see  that  this  fixes 


The  Black  Swans 


the  earlier  habitat  of  these  mystic 
swans  of  ours  somewhere  in  the  iron 
environment  of  the  Mesaba  Hills. 

They  sing  not,  neither  do  they  swim ; 
they  eat  not,  neither  do  they  drink; 
they  fly  not,  neither  do  they  walk, 
these  swans  mysterious;  but  they  have 
a  certain  wondrous,  priceless  power 
which  is  never  invoked  in  vain.  At  a 
given  signal  they  appear  with  flaming 
wings  and  you  have  only  to  resign 
yourself  to  the  magic  spell  of  the  light 
they  radiate  on  such  occasions  to 
leave  your  cares  at  once  behind.  You 
may  then  be  borne  aloft  and  far  away, 
across  immeasurable  heights  and 
depths,  over  mountains,  lakes  and 
seas,  over  fields  and  forests,  back  into 
the  remotest  reaches  of  the  past,  or 
forward  into  the  illimitable  vistas  of 
the  future.  Such  is  the  boon  bestowed 
on  those  who  really  know  and  under- 
stand these  black-swan  andirons  of 
our  open  fire.  They  wait  only  the 
striking  of  the  tiny  match  that  lights 
[10] 


The  Building  of  the  Nest 


the  forest-born  burden  on  their  backs 
to  bear  you  where  your  fancy  leads; 
and  presently  the  old  clock  in  the 
corner  there  will  strike,  and  bring 
your  fireside  travels  to  a  happy  end. 

I  am  not  altogether  certain,  even 
after  the  lapse  of  many  years  of  close 
companionship  with  these  two  faithful 
friends,  as  to  which  has  really  con- 
tributed most  to  the  sum  total  of  life, 
the  fireplace  or  the  clock.  Close  analy- 
sis of  the  psychology  of  the  situation 
would,  I  fancy,  assign  first  place  in  our 
affections  to  the  flame  upon  the  hearth, 
but  through  the  darker  days  and  frosty 
nights  of  the  early  spring  and  fall, 
when  the  glowing  logs  have  first  put 
one  in  the  proper  mood,  there  would 
still  be  something  lacking  but  for  the 
old  clock's  soft-voiced  measured  mark- 
ing of  the  hours. 

It  is  not  one  of  those  massively  grand 
affairs  with  golden  chimes  and  shining 
brass  securely  boxed  in  a  mahogany 
mausoleum  with  a  time-lock  on  the 

[ii] 


The  Black  Swans 


plate-glass  door.  We  have  one  of 
those  too,  in  town,  a  very  ornamental 
piece  of  furniture,  to  be  sure,  but  no 
intimate  of  mine.  It's  too  infernally 
exclusive.  You  can't  get  near  it.  A  fine 
Swiss  watch  kept  in  a  fire-and-burglar- 
proof  safe  would  be  quite  as  sociable. 
Not  so  this  dear  old-fashioned  thing 
that  came  to  live  with  us  at  Dumbie- 
dykes.  You  have  seen  clocks  like  it. 
Our  grandfathers  knew  them  well. 
We  ought  to  know  them  better.  Simple 
works,  mounted  on  a  shelf  behind  a 
dial.  Big,  square,  iron  weights  operated 
by  chain  and  pulley.  A  long  wooden 
pendulum  with  its  metal  disc  swaying 
lazily  back  and  forth  between  four 
open  posts,  some  seven  feet  in  height. 
Nothing  comes  between  you  and  itself. 
It  is  there,  alive,  close  to  you. 

I  am  not  sure  but  it  has  altogether 
the  most  agreeable  personality  of  any 
member  of  the  household.  Its  poise 
is  so  perfect,  its  voice  is  never  raised 
in  anger  nor  suppressed  in  sullen 

[12] 


THE  CLOCK 


The  Building  of  the  Nest 


silence.  Rain  or  shine,  day  or  night, 
in  storm  or  calm,  its  drowsy  tick-tock 
talk  goes  on  forever;  and  when  at 
night  the  firelight  shadows  play  around 
its  face,  its  subtle,  soothing  power  is 
at  its  best. 

And  there  is  a  picture  painted  on  the 
dial.  You  know  it  well.  I  scarce  need 
tell  about  it.  The  same  that  has  been 
painted  on  clock  faces  ever  since  men 
first  became  familiar  with  red-roofed 
gabled  houses,  with  purling  streams, 
birds,  flowers  and  trees,  for  back- 
ground. Once  I  was  well  acquainted 
with  another  clock  that  stood  upon 
an  old-time  kitchen  shelf.  I  don't  even 
know  who  has  it  now.  I  wish  I  did. 
I  would  go  a  long  way  to  see  it.  And 
yet,  what  would  be  the  use,  for  is  it 
not  before  me  now?  Can  one  forget 
such  things?  The  peaceful  landscape 
done  in  colors  gay  upon  its  dial  is 
likely  badly  faded  now.  And  there 
was  a  little  church  in  the  background. 


CHAPTER  II 

Behind  the  Backlog 

A  GREAT  day  that  when  the  storm- 
doors  and  windows  all  come  down 
and  we  let  the  sunlight  in.  This  cere- 
mony is  commonly  celebrated  in  April. 
Of  course  various  exploring  expeditions 
always  precede  the  first  real  lighting 
of  the  fire,  and  the  actual  starting  of 
the  clock.  These  must  wait  yet  a  little 
while.  But  the  knowledge  of  the  certain 
joys  they  are  to  bring  is  ours  already. 
Andy,  the  watchman,  tells  us  that 
the  snow  along  the  hedge-row  out  in 
front  had  been  piled  so  high  that  in  his 
winter  rounds  he  walked  safely  over 
the  top  repeatedly.  This  we  could  well 
believe,  for  unmelted  remnants  of 
great  drifts  were  still  in  evidence  in 


The  Black  Swans 


the  early  spring.  And  while  I  think  of 
it:  if  you  have  a  Rambler  rose  to 
which  you  are  specially  attached,  and 
it  is  growing  all  over  the  front  of  your 
pergola,  decking  it  in  beauty  every 
June,  and  you  do  not  want  it  winter- 
killed and  you  leave  it  to  some  "nut" 
to  take  care  of  in  the  fall,  and  he  does 
it  up  splendidly  in  corn-stalks,  and 
a  cold  and  cruel  winter  puts  the  rab- 
bits hard  to  it  for  existence,  and  the 
"bunnies"  eat  all  the  bark  off  poor 
Dorothy  Perkins's  stems,  and  you 
find  the  rabbit's  nest  still  there  in 
April — but  no  rabbits — and  your  rose- 
vine  is  dead  as  the  prophets,  and  you 
are  sore  and  sad,  do  not  kick  anybody 
or  anything  except  yourself  for  an 
unconscionable  idiot  for  permitting  so 
silly  a  bit  of  fool  preparedness.  You  do 
not  miss  your  rose  until  it's  dead,  and 
even  the  least  of  "blessings  brighten 
as  they  take  their  flight." 

The   winter   you    must   understand 
has  been  spent  in  town  in  the  surly 

I  til 


Behind  the  Backlog 


company  of  unresponsive  radiators. 
You  can't  get  a  word  or  a  "rise"  of  any 
kind  out  of  any  one  of  them.  I  have 
tried  it  and  know.  All  you  can  expect 
is  mere  heat.  True,  that  is  no  bad  thing 
to  have  around  when,  as  happened  only 
last  January,  you  are  snowbound  for 
days  while  deep  drifts  are  being  opened 
up  to  traffic;  but  you  can  study  a 
radiator  just  as  long  as  you  like  and  I 
will  wager  you  will  receive  not  one  sin- 
gle inspiration  from  it,  will  see  not  one 
picture  of  any  kind,  nor  hear  the  sound 
of  any  voice.  That  is  the  fundamen- 
tal difference  between  dead  hot  metal 
and  living  fire  upon  the  hearth.  But  if 
you  are  only  patient  you  have  always 
this  assurance  blest — the  sun-fires  over- 
head will  surely  come  at  the  appointed 
hour  and  the  outer  door  be  opened. 

Meantime,  mysterious  forms  of  the 
life  everlasting,  underneath  the  snow 
and  ice  at  Dumbiedykes,  are  also 
waiting  and  watching,  just  as  anxiously 
as  we  ourselves  around  the  steam  coils, 

[17] 


The  Black  Swans 


for  the  approach  of  spring.  We  left 
them  there  last  fall,  these  bulbs  that 
were  to  be  our  hyacinths,  and  in  their 
long  duress  they  did  not  lack  for  com- 
pany. Their  kin-folk,  the  tulips  and 
the  daffodils,  were  by  their  side,  the 
valley  lilies,  too,  and  iris;  and  the  slum- 
bering subterranean  capillaries  of  the 
lilacs  and  the  oaks. 

Lines  on  the  Planting  of  the  Hyacinths 
at  Dumbiedykes 

Out  of  the  earth  thou  earnest, 

To  earth  return. 

Thine  the  eternal  mystery! 

Out  of  the  darkness  cometh  light  and  life. 

Sleep  sweetly,  therefore,  happy  hyacinth! 

Soon  shall  the  drifting  snows 

Seek  out  thy  resting  place 

And  hold  thee  in  their  close  embrace. 

And  through  the  dreary  midnight  hours 

The  glittering  stars  that  glisten  brightest 

When  the  Frost  King  rides  triumphant 

Through  the  northern  skies, 

Shall  guard  thy  rest. 

Fear  not. 

Within  thyself  dwells  immortality! 


Behind  the  Backlog 


In  God's  own  time 

The  sunshine  and  the  showers 

And  soft  caressing  southern  airs 

Shall  come  and  bid  thee  rise. 

And  clad  in  garments  green 

And  bearing  in  thy  sheltering  arms 

The  fragrant  fruitage  of  thy  heart 

Thou  shalt  come  forth  in  beauty  bright 

To  greet  a  world  renewed. 

And  in  thy  blossoms  fair 

We  find  and  understand 

The  truth. 

The  odor  of  the  hyacinth  is  the  one 
thing  in  all  this  world  that  never  fails 
to  take  me  back  at  once  to  another 
country  home.  Father's,  however, 
were  always  potted  or  placed  in  water 
bottles  and  hidden  away  somewhere 
in  the  deep  recesses  of  the  cellar  for 
their  hibernation.  Mother's  cellar!  Its 
shelving  laden  always  with  rich  stores 
of  sweets,  jams,  jellies,  and  preserves; 
each  Mason  jar  filled  and  sealed  and 
labeled  under  her  own  personal  direc- 
tion! Yes,  often  the  whole  inviting 
process  performed  by  her  own  busy 

[19] 


The  Black  Swans 


well-skilled  hands!  Their  work  was 
long  since  finished,  and  he  who  brought 
each  spring  his  hyacinths  out  of  the 
darkness  into  the  light  that  they  might 
bloom  for  all  of  us  is  not  here  now! 
Red  and  white,  and  pink  and  blue,  I 
see  them  still  upon  the  window  sill. 
And  their  perfume  is  not  lost. 

The  nights  are  always  cool  in  the 
midst  of  so  much  encircling  verdure 
through  the  months  of  May  and  June, 
and  sometimes  as  late  as  July  when 
"dear  Zeus"  answers  the  Athenian 
supplication  for  rain  "down  on  the 
plowed  fields  and  the  plains,"  the  black 
swans  of  the  fireplace  seem  to  a1  so 
hear,  and  know  their  services  are 
wanted.  The  truth  is  the  spring  fires 
burn  here  with  almost  unfailing  reg- 
ularity, and  Henry  has  to  look  well 
to  the  wood-pile  or  we  lack  proper 
supplies.  A  good  faithful  fellow, 
Henry!  He  owns  a  little  place  himself 
not  far  away,  and  markets  with  us 
such  wood  as  he  can  spare,  and  I  am 

[201 


Behind  the  Backlog 


not  sure  that  his  forestry  operations 
are  always  carried  on  in  strict  accor- 
dance with  scientific  principles.  You 
know  that  the  infernally  efficient  Ger- 
man Government  permits  in  Germany 
only  the  cutting  of  an  amount  of 
wood  each  year  that  measures  the 
computed  equivalent  of  what  Nature 
has  that  year  added  by  the  ordinary 
process  of  growth  and  maturity.  I  am 
not  going  over  to  investigate  Henry 
too  closely  either  in  regard  to  this 
matter,  and  the  Kaiser,  thank  God, 
has  not  yet  jurisdiction  here,  even 
though  this  is  a  township  bearing  the 
now  unhappy  name  of  Bremen.  Per- 
haps if  our  loyal  Lowden  remains 
governor  of  Illinois  long  enough  he 
may  have  this  blot  on  the  Cook  County 
map  removed.  And  speaking  of  the 
governor  and  of  forestry,  that  was  a 
fine  thing  he  did  many  years  ago  on 
his  estate  at  Sinnissippi.  On  the  sand 
hills  overlooking  the  Rock  River  Valley 
hundreds  of  seedling  pines  were  set 

[21] 


The  Black  Swans 


where  nothing  stood  before,  and  hardy 
conifers  are  now  growing,  while  he 
governs,  into  timber  that  some  day 
may  be  sadly  needed. 

Once  upon  a  time  the  upper  Ohio 
River  valley  was  famous  for  its  forests. 
Here  and  there  Indians  had  opened 
little  clearings  where  squaw-farming 
helped  forefend  the  hours  of  famine. 
In  the  wide  expansion  of  the  arts  of 
agriculture  that  followed  the  great 
wave  of  emigration  that  poured  over 
the  Blue  Ridge  from  the  Old  Dominion 
after  the  close  of  the  War  of  the 
Revolution,  the  Virginia  pioneers, 
first  in  Kentucky  and  then  in  southern 
Ohio,  laid  the  axe  ruthlessly  to  a 
million  monarchs  of  these  ancient  for- 
ests. The  soil  into  which  for  uncounted 
generations  they  had  sent  their  roots 
was  now  wanted  for  the  plow.  Huge 
heaps  of  logs  were  rolled  together  and 
put  to  the  torch;  great  oaks,  walnuts, 
hickories  and  beeches  "in  one  red 
burial  bent."  They  had  no  value  then 
[22] 


Behind  the  Backlog 


because  of  lack  of  transportation  and 
a  market.  There  came  a  time  one  day, 
however,  in  the  national  life  when  a 
bridge  of  ships  across  the  sea  had  to  be 
builded  quickly  lest  a  world  revert  to 
a  barbarism  worse  than  that  which 
had  once  burned  captives  at  the  stake 
in  these  same  Ohio  forest  clearings;  a 
time  when  all  this  slaughtered  timber 
would  have  helped  to  win  the  greatest 
battle  of  the  ages!  However,  nothing 
in  nature  is  ever  altogether  lost,  and 
so  it  comes  to  pass  in  the  fullness  of 
the  years  that  the  dust  of  trees  thus 
wantonly  destroyed  in  days  lang  syne 
helps  to  sustain  at  last  the  meadows, 
fields  and  gardens  now  contributing 
to  a  Nation's  harvest. 

Descended  as  I  am  in  all  lines  from 
these  log-rolling,  rail-splitting  Virgin- 
ians who  opened  up  the  virgin  forests 
of  the  Appalachian  slopes,  is  it  any 
wonder  that  it  has  always  seemed  to 
me  that  a  home  that  has  not  the  glow- 
ing back-log  for  its  background  is  no 

[231 


The  Black  Swans 


home  at  all — just  a  mere  place  to  stay 
and  vegetate  until  you  can  get  settled 
by  an  open  fire,  and  so  get  in  touch  at 
last  with  all  the  Universe? 

The  woodman  who  brings  not  hick- 
ory to  me  is  not  my  friend.  I  know  it 
is  becoming  scarce  and  that  it  should 
not  be  burned  at  all  in  these  belated 
and  berated  conservation  days,  but  I 
ask  for  so  very  little,  just  enough  to 
get  the  snap  and  a  certain  flame  I  love 
to  watch  on  evenings  when  it's  dark 
and  wet  and  drear  out  there  beyond 
the  window-sills!  In  fact,  your  true 
fire-worshipper's  enjoyment  of  his  fire 
begins  with  the  selection  of  the  proper 
materials  for  it.  This  service  he  should 
always  render  himself,  if  he  wants 
things  as  they  should  be,  for  there  are 
a  million  different  kinds  of  fires — one 
to  fit  every  conceivable  human  mood; 
and  who  knows  quite  so  well  as  I 
myself  what  may  be  on  my  mind  to- 
night, and  just  what  type  of  fire  com- 
panionship I  want?  You  can  no  more 

[24] 


Behind  the  Backlog 


make  a  fire  for  some  one  else  than  you 
can  successfully  pick  a  wife  or  hus- 
band for  another  person.  It's  chancy 
enough,  some  say,  to  pick  one  for  your- 
self, or  be  picked,  as  the  case  may 
be;  and  the  building  of  the  fire,  if  it 
is  to  be  considered  as  a  fine  art — 
which  I  certainly  contend  it  to  be — is 
not  the  simple  act  it  seems.  I  speak 
of  course  from  the  standpoint  of  those 
fortunate  few  who  have  been  blessed 
by  Nature  with  the  gift  of  reading  fire- 
light mysteries. 

That  oak  now  flaming  so  brightly 
on  the  fire  seems  trying  to  tell  me 
something.  When  I  turned  away  a 
while  ago  it  lapsed  into  absolute  in- 
difference, so  I  give  it  a  good  poke  and 
listen  to  its  simple  story.  What  did  it 
say?  A  lot.  Much  more  no  doubt  than 
you  would  care  to  hear.  I  had  been 
reading  Parkman  and  his  thrilling 
tales  of  how  a  great  new  world  was 
found  by  France  and  lost  again.  This 
oak  was  from  a  tree  that  once  had 

[25] 


The  Black  Swans 


stood  upon  the  top  of  that  range  of 
hills  to  be  seen  there  on  our  western 
horizon.  In  the  valley  beyond  flows 
the  little  river  called  Des  Plaines. 
Farther  north  a  low  water  shed  divides 
its  drainage  from  another  stream,  once 
known  as  the  south  branch  of  the 
Chicago,  that  emptied  into  the  big 
lake.  The  portage  was  a  short  one  for 
the  aborigines  and  for  the  explorers 
journeying  from  Mackinac  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi. My  guest  from  the  hills  is 
telling  that  his  arboreal  ancestors  stood 
and  watched  with  wonder  LaSalle  and 
his  intrepid  company  pass  silently 
below  between  those  brushy  banks, 
his  barges  freighted  deep  with  fate  for 
France  and  you  and  me!  His  works, 
his  deeds,  live  after  him!  And  the  oak 
now  falling  into  ashes  on  the  hearth  is 
saying  that  before  it  came  to  us  it 
threw  its  own  seed  on  the  soil  from 
whence  it  sprang,  and  other  oaks  for 
other  fires  are  growing  where  it  fell. 
And  so  we  learn  again.  Each  "little 
[26] 


Behind  the  Backlog 


life  is  rounded  by  a  sleep,"  but  nothing 
worth  while  ever  really  dies. 

In  the  glowing  embers  there  are 
pictures  now.  The  Des  Plaines  has 
led  us  southward.  The  waters  of  Fox 
River  are  emptying  into  the  Illinois. 
Starved  Rock  looms  in  the  distance. 
The  Illini  perish.  Tonty  passes.  Some 
stunted  trees  are  clinging  to  their 
ancient  sand-stone  cliffs.  Far  to  the 
west  and  north  beyond  the  fertile 
prairies  where  the  waving  oats  and 
rich  green  fields  of  tasseled  Indian 
corn  now  tell  each  year  the  story  of  a 
thrifty  husbandry,  the  Sinnissippi  Val- 
ley lies  in  all  its  beauty.  The  little 
hamlet,  Grand  Detour,  still  dozes  by 
the  river's  edge.  And  farther  on  a 
colossal  figure  from  a  dominating  height 
commands  perhaps  the  fairest  land- 
scape in  all  this  teeming  west.  Black 
Hawk!  A  grand  conception,  that  great 
monument,  the  handiwork  of  Lorado 
Taft!  The  last  great  chieftain  surveys 
the  once  happy  home  of  the  vanished 


The  Black  Swans 


tribes.  Poise,  dignity,  faith,  pathos, 
patience!  The  red  warrior  with  folded 
arms  and  vision  keen  recalls  a  sceptre 
lost  and  calmly  waits  the  verdict  of 
the  centuries.  On  the  very  verge  of  the 
precipice  at  his  feet  a  blasted  cedar 
stands,  defying  the  lightnings  of  the 
passing  years.  Tradition  has  it  that 
the  eagles  nested  once  within  its 
scraggy  arms  from  which  all  life  has 
long  since  passed.  Fit  symbol  this  of 
broken  hopes;  and  what  a  story  could 
be  told  if  any  one  of  its  skeleton  arms 
were  placed  upon  our  fire  tonight! 
But  it  is  sacred  now  and  for  all  time. 
Were  the  red  men  as  savage  as  they 
have  been  painted?  Perhaps.  We 
know  that  the  Iroquois,  the  most  in- 
telligent, the  most  capable,  the  most 
outstanding  of  all  the  so-called  un- 
civilized races  of  which  there  is  record 
in  the  world's  history,  extended  their 
armed  sway  across  the  American  wil- 
derness as  far  west  as  the  land  of  the 
Dakotas.  But  their  worst  has  been 
[28! 


Behind  the  Backlog 


more  than  surpassed  within  the  past 
four  years  by  a  fiend  incarnate  claim- 
ing partnership  with  the  Christian  God! 
I  stood  one  day  not  long  ago  on 
Black  Hawk's  high  Rock  River  crag; 
and  a  few  hours  later  traversed  the 
great  armed  camp  at  Rockford,  where 
forty  thousand  brave  bronzed  boys 
were  in  training  for  the  task  of  helping 
trail  the  tiger  to  his  lair  beyond  the 
Rhine.  I  saw  the  Eighty-sixth  Divi- 
sion making  ready  for  immediate  ser- 
vice overseas.  They  call  themselves 
the  "  Blackhawks."  They  have  official 
ly  adopted  the  Indian  word,  or  words, 
that  signify  the  old  chief's  name  in  his 
native  tongue,  as  their  battle  cry. 
And  so  the  spirit  of  a  so-called  savage 
past  has  at  last  come  to  be  invoked 
in  the  common  struggle  in  defense  of 
elemental  human  rights  and  liberties. 


29 


CHAPTER  III 

Half-Hours  with  Mercury  and  Vulcan 

THERE  is  still  a  chill  in  the  air 
this  day  in  early  June.  The  Great 
Lake's  breath  is  yet  drawn  deeply 
from  the  far-off  northern  reservoirs, 
and  by  that  same  token  we  shall  have 
a  goodly  fire  again  tonight.  But  mean- 
time the  sun  is  warm,  and  out  there 
on  the  lawn,  protected  from  the  wind 
by  the  shaggy  grove  that  guards  us  on 
the  east,  an  arm-chair  looks  inviting. 
It's  just  an  out-of-door  sitting  room 
anyhow,  this  little  lawn  at  Dumbie- 
dykes.  The  hedge- rows  all  around 
have  grown  so  tall  you  can't  see  out 
nor  in.  So  here  we  are,  the  world  all 
barred  away,  shut  off  from  all  except 
our  own. 


The  Black  Swans 


The  cat-birds  like  it  too,  and  we  like 
them.  They  are  so  trim,  so  neat,  so 
"tailor-made,"  as  Billy  says;  and 
friendly  always.  They  reproduce  them- 
selves in  two  short  weeks,  and  in  ten 
days  more  the  mother  lights  upon  a 
twig  above  the  nest  where  they  were 
born  and  fed  and  clucking  to  the  tiny 
chicks  with  fluttering  wings  she  tells 
her  wee  ones  of  a  great  adventure  now 
at  hand;  and  one  by  one  they  struggle 
out  and  take  their  places  in  the  big  new 
world.  And  who  shall  say  that  place 
of  theirs  is  unimportant?  It  may  seem 
so  to  us,  but  who  are  we?  That  is 
their  question.  And  from  their  stand- 
point what  is  it  we  do  to  justify  our 
own  existence?  One  thing  at  least  it 
seems  the  cat-bird,  in  common  with 
the  robin,  gives  us  credit  for.  Wherever 
we  build  our  own  nests,  the  robber 
birds — say  the  blue-jays  or  the  crows — 
do  not  come  close.  Our  eaves  and 
porches  look  good  therefore  to  Cock 
Robin,  and  a  cat-bird  dearly  loves 

[32] 


Half-Hours  with  Mercury  and  Vulcan 

the  cover  of  a  bush  that's  near  your 
door. 

How  grateful  is  that  sun !  How  blue 
the  sky!  How  green  today  the  ivies 
and  the  Persian  lilacs  that  near  obscure 
the  soft-gray  stuccoed  walls.  The 
outer  hedge-rows  throw  their  emerald 
belt  about  it  all.  Not  even  sound 
obtrudes  upon  seclusion  all  but  ab- 
solute, save  the  rustling  of  oak  leaves 
over-head.  And  so  I  doze  and  dream. 
My  book  today  has  chanced  to  be 
The  Odyssey.  In  obedience  to  Jove's 
command  the  winged  Mercury  has 
just  alighted  on  Calypso's  fabled  isle. 
I  love  Leigh  Hunt's  translation,  and 
wish  you  would  read  it  with  me. 

"And  now  arriving  at  the  isle,  he  springs 
Oblique,  and  landing  with  subsided  wings, 
Walks  to  the  cavern  'mid  the  tall  green  rocks, 
Where  dwelt  the  goddess  with  the  lovely  locks. 
He  paused;   and   there  came  on   him,   as  he 

stood, 

A  smell  of  cedar  and  of  citron  wood, 
That  threw  a  perfume  all  about  the  isle; 
And  she  within  sat  spinning  all  the  while, 

[33] 


The  Black  Swans 


And  sang  a  low  sweet  song  that  made  him 

hark  and  smile. 

A  sylvan  nook  it  was,  grown  round  with  trees, 
Poplars,  and  elms,  and  odorous  cypresses, 
In  which  all  birds  of  ample  wing,  the  owl 
And    hawk,    had    nests,    and    broad-tongued 

waterfowl. 
The  cave  in   front  was  spread  with   a  green 

vine, 
Whose  dark  round  bunches  almost  burst  with 

wine; 
And  from  four  springs,   running   a   sprightly 

race, 
Four  fountains  clear  and  crisp  refreshed  the 

plate; 

While  all  about  a  meadowy  ground  was  seen, 
Of  violets  mingling  with  the  parsley  green." 

And  then  I  wake.  Around  about  me 
the  enchanted  island  washed  by  blue 
Aegean  waves !  No,  it  cannot  be,  for  it 
is  mint  I  smell,  not  cedar  nor  yet  citron 
wood.  And  those  fountains,  are  they 
really  racing  through  the  violets  and 
asphodel?  It  is  not  so.  No  Mercury 
appears;  only  Henry  in  blue  overalls 
and  he  has  just  laid  the  nozzle  of  the 
garden  hose  down  there  among  the 

(34l 


Half -Hours  with  Mercury  and  Vulcan 

pink  geraniums,  and  is  replenishing 
the  bird-bath  yonder  underneath  our 
best  white  oak.  And  he  is  not  using 
a  graceful  Grecian  urn;  just  a  common 
old  watering-pot  with  a  broken  spout! 
And  the  goddess  herself  is  not  inside. 
That  is  no  whirring  spinning  wheel  you 
seem  to  hear.  It  is  Kate  and  the 
vacuum  cleaner  hard  at  work.  That's 
all.  In  fact  Calypso  really  spread  her 
wings  early  in  the  day  and  flew  away 
to  town  on  perfectly  good  shock- 
absorbers  and  sound  cord  tires  to  get 
a  golf  skirt  altered.  The  parsley 
though,  of  which  we  read,  is  growing 
there  by  Mary's  kitchen  door.  Praise 
be  to  the  gods  for  that  much  anyhow! 
We  had  our  fire  that  night  all  right, 
and  needed  it.  In  the  first  place  Calyp- 
so came  home  not  in  the  best  of  humor. 
Even  goddesses,  you  know,  are  priv- 
ileged to  show  temper  at  the  very 
throne  of  high  Olympus  itself!  Field's 
were  so  busy  and  so  "fussed  up"  with 
inexperienced  war  help  that  she  had 

[351 


The  Black  Swans 


been  compelled  to  wait  an  hour  or  two 
before  she  could  even  get  a  chance  to 
try  on  the  blessed  skirt,  and  even  then 
it  didn't  fit!  And  she  did  not  propose 
to  wear  the  blamed  thing  anyway.  It 
was  a  fright!  So  there!  And  having 
once  altered  it,  the  firm  refused  of 
course  to  put  it  back  in  stock,  and 
what's  to  be  done?  She  has  a  match 
on  tomorrow  with  Cora  or  Gertrude — 
I  don't  remember  which — and  nothing 
to  wear!  Can  you  beat  it?  I  ventured 
to  say  that  goddesses  in  the  old  days 
were  not  specially  particular,  from  all 
pictures,  statues  and  other  records 
handed  down,  as  to  whether  they  wore 
a  lot  of  clothes  when  on  the  Olympian 
links  or  not,  but  this  did  not  help 
much. 

In  the  second  place,  had  I  ordered 
that  coal  yet  for  the  hot-water  heater? 
Naturally  I  had  not.  Had  I  not  been 
comfortable  out  there  in  the  sun-rays 
all  afternoon  with  Homer  and  the 
bumble  bees  and  big  brown  butterflies 
[36] 


Half-Hours  with  Mercury  and  Vulcan 

attracted  by  the  "perfume  all  about 
the  isle"?  What  did  such  a  thing  as 
coal  mean  to  any  mere  man  under 
such  circumstances?  Not  a  bit  more 
than  it  did  to  shrewd,  hardworking 
Mclnerney  that  Sunday  when  Father 
Dorney  made  his  famous  appeal  for 
contributions  to  buy  fuel  for  the 
church.  You  doubtless  all  know  the 
answer.  The  good  father  had  ob- 
served that  Pat  had  not  dropped  any 
coin  into  the  plate  when  it  was  passed, 
and  after  the  service  was  over  took 
him  to  task  about  it.  Whereupon  the 
thrifty  parishioner  rejoined:  "Well, 
Father,  ye  can't  fool  me  with  all  this 
beggin'  fer  money  to  buy  coal.  Ye 
know  blanked  well  that  this  church 
is  hated  by  sthame!"  And  had  we  not 
good  oak  and  hickory? 

But  under  the  mellowing  influences 
of  the  glow  that  soon  was  casting  rosy 
beams  of  light  and  gladness  all  around, 
the  golf  skirt  that  had  failed,  and  the 
coal  that  was  not  ordered,  and  the 

[37] 


The  Black  Swans 


cold  rain  that  now  beat  upon  the 
window  panes  outside,  were  soon  for- 
gotten. And  the  clock  ticked  on  as  if 
in  mockery  not  only  of  the  big,  but 
of  all  the  little,  griefs  and  worries  of  a 
foolish  world. 

And  presently,  looking  at  the  and- 
irons and  the  fire,  I  seemed  to  see  a 
portrait  of  a  dear  old-fashioned  village 
blacksmith,  beloved  by  all  who  knew 
him,  whose  shop  was  once  upon  a  time 
to  me  a  place  of  a  thousand  mysteries, 
as  well  as  the  unpretentious  industrial 
center  of  an  appreciative  farming  com- 
munity. He  stands  there  as  in  days  of 
yore,  one  hand  resting  upon  his  hip, 
the  other  working  the  bellows,  a  cheery 
smile  upon  his  honest  face;  big-chested, 
big-hearted,  gentle  as  any  child.  How 
we  all  loved  to  watch  him  at  his  work. 
He  usually  wore  a  red  flannel  shirt, 
with  sleeves  rolled  up,  and  the  in- 
evitable leather  apron  to  protect  his 
clothing  from  the  sparks.  Now  he 
draws  the  white-hot  rod  or  bar  of  iron 

[38] 


Half-Hours  with  Mercury  and  Vulcan 

from  out  the  flaming  forge;  fast  and 
hard  and  true  the  hammer  falls,  and 
the  ringing  of  that  anvil  beneath  his 
heavy  blows  is  still  as  music  to  my 
ears.  The  boy  who  knows  not  such  a 
picture  has  missed  something. 

Vulcan  himself  could  have  meant  no 
more  to  the  ancients  than  did  this 
wonder-worker  of  the  old-time  black- 
smith shop  to  the  simple-hearted 
country  folk  he  served  so  long,  so 
honestly,  so  faithfully.  It  wasn't  much 
of  a  place  to  look  at — this  busy  little 
shop  of  which  I  speak — just  a  one- 
story  frame  affair  with  great  wide 
doors,  dirt  floor;  the  rafters,  walls  and 
corners  stored  with  the  crude  shapes  of 
iron  from  which  the  dear  old  smithy 
wrought  metallic  marvels!  It  would 
cut  but  a  sorry  figure,  to  be  sure,  along- 
side a  great  modern  forging  plant  such 
as  that  our  good  friend  Ingalls  operates 
now  by  day  and  night.  And  I  have 
since  seen  big  batteries  of  Bessemer 
blast  and  open-hearth  furnaces  dis- 

[39l 


The  Black  Swans 


charging  their  deluges  of  liquid  ore 
under  roofs  that  seemed  acres  in  ex- 
tent, with  ingots,  blooms  and  billets, 
rails  and  beams  traveling  around  great 
mills  where  men  seemed  to  have  little 
to  do  with  anything  save  to  work  the 
levers  or  press  electric  buttons.  And 
yet  there  was  that  about  the  little  old 
shop  that  fascinated  boyish  fancies 
even  more  than  all  the  prodigies  of 
Schwab  or  Carnegie. 

There  was  a  wagon-maker's  shop 
next  door,  and  when  the  wood  was 
ready  for  the  irons  or  steel  the  good 
smith  took  his  turn.  There  may  be 
wagons  just  as  good — or,  for  all  I 
know,  infinitely  better  ones — turned 
out  by  modern  labor-saving  works, 
but  when  those  which  I  recall  received 
their  coats  of  vivid  green  and  flaming 
vermillion  paint  they  were  certainly 
the  pride  of  all  the  village  streets  and 
country  roads  over  which  they  rolled. 
And  they  stood  a  world  of  wear  and 
tear. 

[40] 


Half-Hours  with  Mercury  and  Vulcan 

All  sorts  of  simple  farming  imple- 
ments and  tools  came  for  repairs,  and 
plowshares  must  be  sharpened.  And 
sometimes  a  dozen  horses  waited  to  be 
shod.  The  shoeing  of  a  horse's  foot 
interests  me  deeply  even  yet.  Only 
last  August  at  the  H-F  Bar  I  often 
visited  the  busy  little  shop  where 
Smoke  and  Blaze  and  Splash  and 
Colonel  and  all  that  bronco  generation 
came — needless  to  say  very  decidedly 
against  their  own  strong  wills — to 
get  the  little  plates  they  needed  in 
their  summer  scrambling  on  the  Big 
Horn  trails.  But  I  did  not  ask  the 
privilege  of  assisting  at  the  ceremony 
there,  as  I  always  did  at  "Uncle 
Harl's."  My  share  in  his  place  was 
switching  the  flies  off  three  legs  of  a 
horse  while  the  fourth  was  in  the  far- 
rier's apron  having  a  hoof  pared  proper- 
ly for  the  setting  of  the  new  and  still 
hot  shoe.  This  fly-chaser  was  a  de- 
funct horse's  tail  tacked  onto  a  handle. 
To  my  mind  it  was  a  genuine  treasure, 

[41] 


The  Black  Swans 


and  those  old  farm  teams  were  so 
lovable.  They  would  stand  and  fairly 
go  to  sleep  while  the  old  horse-tail 
fly-brush  was  being  plied  and  the 
shoer's  work  performed.  On  the  ranch, 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  in  some  cases  a 
free  fight  between  man  and  beast,  in 
which  one  used  a  bar  of  iron  on  the 
ribs  or  head  of  his  adversary,  and  the 
other  his  heels.  Even  the  expedient  of 
tightly  roping  one  foreleg  did  not  suffice 
in  one  case  I  recall.  The  farrier  was 
temporarily  foiled  by  the  little  moun- 
tain devil  deliberately  lying  flat  and 
kicking  on  the  floor.  This  particular 
shoer  had  a  broken  leg  as  a  memento 
of  some  such  former  session  with  a 
cantankerous  subject.  But  of  these 
broncos  more  anon.  I  should  not 
imagine  that  the  managers  of  accident 
insurance  companies  would  class  shoers 
of  cow  ponies  as  preferred  risks  in 
their  business. 

I  know  that  our  fire  set  could  have 
been    made   beautifully   by   hand   by 

[42]  ' 


Half-Hours  with  Mercury  and  Vulcan 

"Uncle  Harl,"  and  it  would  have  been 
wonderful  to  watch  him  bend  and 
fashion  each  particular  piece  as  his 
own  fertile  fancy  might  have  dictated. 
How  I  would  love  to  hear  that  voice 
again;  it  was  so  rich  and  deep,  and 
there  was  no  note  of  anger  in  all  its 
register.  I  doubt  if  a  kindlier  bigger 
heart  ever  beat  in  mortal  breast.  His 
type  has  passed.  Horseshoers  we  have 
with  us  yet,  but  the  all-around  con- 
structive, clever,  clear-brained,  keen- 
eyed  individual  manipulators  of  hot 
iron  and  steel  at  cross-roads  country 
towns  are,  I  fancy,  in  these  days  rarely 
to  be  met. 

And   now  the  clock  calls   "Time!" 
Bed-time!   And  it  is  right,  as  usual. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Low  Tides 

WE  have  run  now  into  the  early 
summer  "doldrums."  The  last 
half  of  July  is  apparently  a  period  of 
rest  and  recuperation  after  the  intense 
and  continuous  activities  of  the  weeks 
immediately  preceding.  The  seeds  have 
sprouted  and  brought  forth.  The 
shrubbery  has  borne  its  blossoms.  The 
birds  have  mostly  reared  their  young 
and  many  have  already  left  for  parts 
unknown.  The  bluegrass  begins  its 
mid-summer  sleep.  The  main  body  of 
the  insect  army  that  makes  August 
ring  with  entomological  melodies  has 
not  yet  arrived.  The  mercury  flirts 
with  eighty-five  degrees  in  the  shade 
on  the  porch  which  is  well  protected 

[45] 


The  Black  Swans 


from  the  sun  by  trees  and  awnings. 
A  very  busy  birdlet  still  imagines 
that  the  spring  is  here  and  carries 
twigs,  and  twitters  all  day  long  as  if  it 
were  still  mid-June.  This  particular 
wren  has  been  known  to  be  at  work 
constructing  two  or  three  different 
nests  at  the  same  time.  Billy  declares 
therefore  that  he  must  be  either  a 
Mormon  or  a  bachelor.  At  intervals 
a  robin  repeats  his  brave  spring  song, 
but  somehow  he  has  lost  his  "pep." 
At  sunset  the  plaintive  notes  of  meadow 
larks  are  still  sometimes  heard,  and 
purple  martens  "flit  and  run"  through 
their  accustomed  evening  flights. 

The  small  grains  and  the  hay  crop 
have  been  harvested.  Red  clover  and 
white  are  yielding  their  honey  stores 
and  the  bees  are  swarming.  Evidently 
the  parent  hives  are  hot  and  over- 
crowded. Only  yesterday  a  colony 
from  somewhere  found  and  took  pos- 
session of  the  hollow  oak,  where  once 
the  flickers  lived;  the  same  that  for 

[46] 


Low  Tides 


one  winter  housed  the  ill-fated  flying 
squirrels  of  happy  memory.  Sweet 
clover  and  tall  weeds  line  the  highways. 
Running  out  from  the  city  this  after- 
noon we  passed  through  long  walls  of 
green  reminding  us  of  English  lanes — 
chiefly  because  it  was  all  so  vastly 
different.  The  road  did  not  wind  in 
and  out  with  long  graceful  curves,  and 
the  greenery  alongside  was  neither 
hawthorn-hedge  nor  ivy;  just  weeds, 
the  rank  sort  that  our  hot  summers 
force  in  such  abundance.  Even  the 
lightnings,  winds  and  rains  that  a  little 
while  ago  were  playing  frequent  havoc 
with  our  wires  have  abated  their  fury 
in  obedience  to  what  seems  to  be  some 
natural  law  that  ever  halts  the  great 
spring  drive  at  this  season  of  the  year. 
The  fire  upon  the  hearth  no  longer 
burns.  The  old  clock  only  changeth  not. 
Time  neither  waits  nor  rests. 

The  year  is  in  its  prime,  its  middle 
age.  Its  restless  youth  is  past.  During 
those  turbulent  earlier  months  many  a 

[47] 


The  Black  Swans 


prospect  fair  was  blasted.  Some  of  our 
finest  plants  were  hopelessly  broken 
by  the  driving  storms  of  May.  Limbs 
were  wrenched  from  the  maples,  and 
torrential  rains  drowned  various  birds 
unable  to  save  themselves  from  the 
fury  of  the  elements.  Those  trying 
days  though  now  are  passed,  and, 
supposedly,  the  fittest  have  survived 
and  inherited  the  earth.  I  wonder  is 
this  always  so?  We  make  a  lot  of 
fuss  of  this  business  of  trying  at  any 
cost  to  keep  .up  with  the  procession 
in  the  struggle  for  place,  precedence  or 
a  mere  existence!  As  if  life  were  a 
matter  of  years  only.  May  not  that 
boy  who  died  so  gloriously  today  in  the 
fateful  valley  of  the  Marne  have  lived 
to  far  more  purpose  than  the  seedy 
specimen  of  humanity  that  begged 
this  morning  at  the  cottage  door?  And 
yet  another  query  presses.  Is  that 
straggling  stalk  of  corn,  trying  in  vain 
to  make  something  out  of  itself  in  that 
hard  clay  soil  back  there  along  the 

[48] 


Low  Tides 


roadside,  to  be  blamed,  because  it  is 
not  tall  and  green  and  fruitful  as  its 
neighbor  in  the  well-tilled  field  the 
other  side  the  fence?  The  grains 
from  which  they  sprang  were  equally 
sound  last  spring  and  assuredly  held 
within  themselves  like  possibilities. 
All  we  know  is  that  one  found  con- 
genial conditions,  the  other  not.  Had 
that  big  oak  the  thunderbolt  destroyed 
a  better  right  to  live  than  its  neighbor 
that  endures  ? 

I  have  spoken  of  the  odor  of  the 
hyacinth  as  invariably  recalling  child- 
hood days.  The  whirring  of  the  elec- 
tric fan,  which  we  on  occasions  set  in 
motion  to  freshen  up  the  air  inside  at 
this  season  of  the  year,  with  equally 
unfailing  certainty  carries  me  instantly 
to  a  summer  spent  in  Washington, 
D.  C.  Once  upon  a  time  a  message 
came  over  the  wire  in  the  month  of 
August  from  the  then  summer  capital 
at  Beverley  Farms,  Massachusetts. 
It  was  signed  by  William  Howard  Taft 

[49] 


The  Black  Swans 


and  requested  me  to  serve  as  a  member 
of  a  body  which  he  had  been  au- 
thorized to  create  under  an  Act  of 
Congress.  Not  having  sought  such  an 
appointment,  and  being  altogether  sat- 
isfied at  the  time  with  life  as  it  was  at 
Dumbiedykes,  I  hesitated  about  ac- 
cepting the  service.  It  happened  to 
be  work  in  which  I  had  been  for  many 
years  very  deeply  interested.  More- 
over, my  game  of  golf  was  just  then 
of  a  brand  calculated  to  drive  almost 
any  self-respecting  person  from  the 
links.  Furthermore  a  certain  United 
States  senator  with  whom  I  consulted 
concerning  the  matter  intimated  that 
if  I  did  not  accept  the  appointment 
the  President  might  make  a  worse  one. 
And  so  a  little  later  I  packed  my  grip 
and  began  my  indeterminate  sentence. 
Now,  I  like  the  capital  city.  Any 
tree-lover  must.  And  Rock  Creek 
Park  is  in  a  class  all  by  itself,  but  that 
sea  of  superheated  asphalt,  that  humid 
atmosphere,  and  those  awful  nights 

[50] 


Low  Tides 


inside  New  Willard  walls !  Fortunately 
I  was  not  compelled  by  my  official 
duties  to  remain  there  but  one  sum- 
mer. That,  however,  was  quite  enough 
to  last  me  a  lifetime.  And  to  this 
day,  no  matter  where  it  may  be  heard, 
the  humming  of  an  electric  fan  carries 
me  forthwith  to  the  hotel  rooms  in 
which  I  lived  the  best  part  of  four 
years  while  trying  to  do  my  bit  for 
Uncle  Sam.  Up  around  The  Highlands 
and  at  the  summit  of  the  Park,  or 
even  on  the  Speedway  down  along  the 
Potomac,  there  was  some  chance  of 
finding  the  necessary  oxygen,  but  one 
could  not  ride  all  night,  and  so  it  came 
to  pass  that  the  Willard  and  its  fans 
and  the  blessed  bath  tub  are  associated 
now  and  forevermore  in  my  mind  with 
hot  weather. 

There  was  another  and  a  brighter 
side,  however,  to  these  Washington 
experiences.  Hard  and  grinding  as  was 
the  work;  impossible  as  it  must  always 
be  to  give  general  satisfaction  in  the 

[51] 


The  Black  Swans 


handling  of  vital  questions  affecting 
the  American  tariff,  our  offices,  looking 
out  from  an  upper  floor  of  the  south- 
ern facade  of  the  Treasury,  directly 
upon  the  Sherman  monumental  group, 
commanded  a  superb  view  of  the  White 
Lot,  the  great  shaft  that  commemo- 
rates the  memory  of  the  Father  of  his 
Country,  and  the  valley  of  the  Poto- 
mac as  far  down  as  the  Long  Bridge 
leading  into  Alexandria.  Beyond  that 
the  Virginia  hills,  which  I  never 
contemplated  without  visions  of  Bull 
Run,  Fredericksburg,  Antietam  and 
Appomattox.  Even  this  would  soon 
have  palled  but  for  the  unfailing  en- 
couragement, support,  courtesy  and 
always  kindly  consideration  of  the 
President  in  connection  with  the  task 
he  had  set. 

After  the  lapse  of  all  these  years  it 
cannot  now  be  out  of  place  to  say 
that  no  man  ever  approached  the  task 
of  revising  the  tariff  laws  of  the  United 
States  with  higher  courage  or  greater 

[52] 


Low  Tides 


honesty  of  purpose  than  did  President 
Taft,  and  while  his  plan  was  success- 
fully opposed  by  political  adversaries 
and  distrustful  manufacturers  within 
the  ranks  of  his  own  party  during  the 
years  we  were  engaged  upon  it,  he  has 
lived  to  see  everything  for  which  he 
so  valiantly  contended  at  that  time 
approved  and  enacted  into  organic 
law  by  Wood  row  Wilson  and  the  very 
men  in  Congress  who  put  to  death 
the  original  Tariff  Board  of  which  I 
had  the  honor  to  be  a  member.  Per- 
haps then,  after  all,  the  weeks  and 
months  away  from  my  own  fireside 
and  business  affairs,  spent  first  in 
wrestling  with  Count  Bernstorff  and 
M.  Jusserand  over  German-American 
and  Franco-American  trade  relations, 
and  secondly  in  grappling  with  the 
intricacies  of  "Schedule  K"  were  not 
entirely  wasted.  Somebody  has  al- 
ways to  do  some  plowing  before  some 
one  else  may  reap.  Some  one  has  to 
ride  ahead  and  help  blaze  the  legisla- 

[53] 


The  Black  Swans 


tive   trails   that  may  lead   ultimately 
to  national  progress. 

The  subject  of  our  commercial  re- 
lations with  the  world  at  large  is  one 
that  has  always  appealed  to  my  imag- 
ination. My  personal  activities  have 
dealt  mainly  with  questions  relating 
to  the  production  and  marketing  of  the 
products  of  the  farm  rather  than  those 
of  the  factory,  but  there  is  such  an 
intimate  and  undivorcible  relationship 
between  the  two,  and  such  a  vast 
field  for  the  exchange  of  vital  inter- 
national concessions  in  arranging  our 
affairs  with  other  nations,  that  not 
even  the  delights  of  Dumbiedykes 
shall  ever  bring  my  interest  in  that 
subject  entirely  to  an  end.  And  as 
the  close  of  the  great  war  comes  in 
sight,  who  shall  deny  the  fact  that 
the  business  readjustments  between 
the  nations,  rendered  imperative  by 
the  financial  and  industrial  earthquake 
through  which  we  are  passing,  shall  be 
a  matter  demanding  the  thoughtful 

tS4l 


Low  Tides 


and  intelligent  consideration  of  every 
patriotic  American. 

A  cool  breeze  is  springing  up  now. 
The  electric  fan  that  started  me,  in 
an  unguarded  moment,  into  talking 
"shop"  is  no  longer  needed.  Let  us 
therefore  shut  it  off  and  bury  for  the 
present,  in  its  silence,  our  memories 
of  those  tropic  nights  when  even  the 
cold  water  ran  hot  in  New  Willard 
tubs. 

Low  tides  come  to  us  all  at  times  I 
fancy.  We  cannot  always  be  riding 
happily  upon  the  flood  that  leads  to 
joyous  fortune.  That  larkspur  blooming 
there  so  gaily,  with  its  tall  blue  flower 
stalks  rising  far  above  its  floral  neigh- 
bors, is  not  always  decked  out  thus. 
It  has  been  comparatively  unnoticed 
in  the  garden  until  now.  It  will  add 
its  beauty  to  the  scene  for  yet  a  little 
while,  and  then  is  gone.  And  thus 
with  all  created  things.  How  cruelly 
short  the  hour  supreme  when  life 
flows  at  its  highest  tide !  And  yet  those 

[55] 


The  Black  Swans 


long  and  tedious  days  or  weeks  or 
years  of  unconscious  preparation  that 
finally  lead  us  up  to  these  summits  of 
existence  are  apparently  an  essential 
part  of  the  Eternal  plan.  The  Century 
plant  in  bloom  at  last  no  doubt  finds  in 
fruition  long  delayed  the  fond  con- 
summation of  all  its  most  cherished 
hopes  and  dreams.  And  that  happy 
dragon  fly  that  is  born  and  lives  its 
shining  hour  and  dies!  It  no  doubt 
also  calls  the  world  just  wonderful! 
At  least  let's  hope  he  does. 

There  come  times  I  suppose  to  all 
of  us  when  we  must  seek  some  Walden 
Pond  and  woods  or  just  "blow  up." 
Rest  is  imperative.  Dig  as  we  may, 
seek  as  we  like  "the  bubble  reputa- 
tion" no  matter  where  or  how,  pursue 
ambition's  call;  receive,  if  you  are 
fortunate,  that  worldly  crown  men 
call  success,  yet  soon  or  late  the  jeweled 
blade  that  led  you  on  must  be  thrown 
back  into  the  waters  of  the  lake  whence 
it  had  been  thrust  by  hands  unseen, 

[56] 


Low  Tides 


and  shadowy  shapes  appear  to  bear 
you  to  your  Isle  of  Avalon.  And  so 
we  cling  each  to  his  own  particular 
Excalibar  until  the  last. 

Speaking  for  myself,  in  the  course  of 
various  quests  for  mental  relaxation, 
I  have  made  some  few  discoveries.  I 
know  that  one  of  the  greatest  things 
in  the  world  for  me  is  the  open  fire  at 
Dumbiedykes.  Another  is  that  or- 
dinary cares  are  easily  forgotten  in  any 
unfrequented  nook  well  forward  on 
the  deck  of  an  ocean  liner  speeding 
noiselessly  through  tranquil  summer 
seas.  A  third  situation  in  which  right 
perspectives  have  sometimes  been  at- 
tained is  a  mountain  height  with  the 
earth  and  all  the  fullness  thereof  ap- 
parently at  one's  feet.  And  if  I  were 
to  add  a  fourth  never-failing  source  of 
inspiration —  and  I  am  not  sure  but  it 
might  be  first — it  would  be  music, 
preferably  Grand  Opera,  provided  only 
it  be  not  of  the  heavy  brand  they 
make  in  Germany. 


The  Black  Swans 


During  these  dog  days  I  cannot  have 
my  fire.  The  sea — thanks  to  the  shame- 
less effort  to  enforce  the  Hohenzollern 
brand  of  civilization  upon  an  unwilling 
world — is  for  the  present  the  last  place 
towards  which  one  would  turn  for 
relaxation  undisturbed,  but  I  still  look 
back  with  memories  filled  with  pure 
delight  to  restful  hours  aboard  the  old 
Majestic  of  the  White  Star-fleet  on  my 
maiden  voyage  oversea.  And  other 
near  approaches  to  Nirvana  were  en- 
joyed again  when,  on  another  holiday, 
the  Azores  hove  in  sight  as  the  fast 
but  ill-fated  Columbia  glided  on  her 
peaceful  way  to  sunny  Italy.  She  is 
now,  I  believe,  somewhere  on  the  ocean 
floor  in  Oriental  waters.  Yes,  and  the 
Lusitania  too,  now  rolling  in  her  deep- 
sea  grave,  once  on  a  time  raced  east- 
ward by  "the  Banks"  through  shifting 
fog-drifts,  alternating  with  glorious 
sun-bursts,  in  a  series  of  matchless 
moving  "marines"  that  shall  hang  in 
the  galleries  of  recollection  until  the 

[58] 


Low  Tides 


end  of  time.  We  were  bound  upon 
that  voyage  for  the  Scottish  Border- 
land, for  a  certain  stately  manor-house 
where  giant  beech-trees  rear  their  ven- 
erable boughs,  not  far  from  where 
"Sweet  Teviot"  pours  out  its  silver 
tide  into  the  Tweed.  But  that  is 
another  story. 

The  fire-place  is  for  the  time  being 
impossible;  the  Seven  Seas  are  for  the 
present,  as  far  as  ordinary  travel  is 
concerned,  verboten,  and  the  winged 
violinists  of  the  grass  and  hedge  and 
trees  are  only  just  beginning  to  arrive. 
But  there  is  left  the  mountains,  and 
it  has  been  years  since  we  have  been 
among  them.  Let  us  now  therefore 
seek  their  solitudes.  And  while  you 
are  getting  ready,  may  we  gossip  for 
a  time  of  mutual  friends? 


"BILLY" 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Case  of  Kate 

ON  the  evening  of  July  twenty-six, 
it  must  have  been  about  nine 
o'clock,  I  sat  reading  near  an  open 
window.  The  day  had  been  hot  and 
sultry,  and  the  moon  which  had  passed 
its  "full"  had  not  yet  shown.  Lyra 
was  gleaming  brightly  overhead  with 
Vega  flashing  steadily  its  blue-white 
fires.  Arcturus  glittered  in  the  west. 
Suddenly  from  somewhere  in  the 
shadows  of  the  lawn  a  sound,  faint 
and  inarticulate,  it  seemed,  yet  never- 
theless distinct  to  one  whose  ears  are 
keenly  attuned  to  the  voices  of  the 
out-of-doors.  I  listened  intently  for  a 
time  for  a  possible  repetition,  but  the 
almost  perfect  silence  of  the  summer 


The  Black  Swans 


night  was  quite  unbroken.  While  I 
had  not  been  positive,  yet  I  would 
have  sworn  that  I  had  heard  in  almost 
whispered  accents  the  one  woid 
"Kate!" 

The  sound  that  I  had  thus  inter- 
preted had  rather  startled  me,  be- 
cause it  was  a  signal  that  I  clearly 
understood;  one  that  had  to  me  a  very 
definite  meaning  if  it  had  really  been 
given.  In  fact,  it  was  to  mark  a  very 
important  episode  in  the  season's  hap- 
penings. The  only  question  was  had 
the  word  actually  been  pronounced 
or  had  my  imagination  only  deceived 
me.  This  I  was  inclined  to  believe 
had  been  the  case,  for  the  tones  em- 
ployed had  been  very  weak  and  seemed 
to  come  from  far  away.  I  reported  the 
incident  to  Billy,  and  asked  her  if  she 
had  heard  it,  but  she  had  not,  so  I 
said: 

"Well,  at  this  same  hour  tomorrow 
night  we  will  know  for  certain,  for  if 
I  heard  that  which  I  am  not  at  all 
[62! 


The  Case  of  Kate 


sure  I  did  hear  tonight  it  will  be  re- 
peated. Of  that  we  may  be  absolutely 
sure.  If  it  is  not,  then  we  shall  know 
that  I  was  only  dreaming." 

I  knew  from  past  experience  that 
there  would  be  no  further  evidence 
that  evening  of  the  presence  of  the 
only  one  in  the  world  who  each  year 
thus  heralds  his  coming,  and  so  I  was 
not  at  all  surprised  that  the  only  fur- 
ther sound  that  broke  the  silence  of 
the  night  in  question  was  a  sudden 
piercing  scream,  followed  by  a  series 
of  muffled  tremulous  notes  that  came 
from  the  black  cover  of  the  trees  on 
neighbor  Alexander's  place.  There 
could  be  no  mistaking  that.  A  pre- 
datory undesirable  citizen  of  the  forest 
of  whose  nocturnal  habits  and  wan- 
derings we  do  not  approve — brer  owl — 
had  possibly  made  a  kill.  Presently 
this  was  heard  again  in  the  farther 
distance.  Then  all  was  still. 

At  almost  precisely  the  same  hour 
on  the  following  night  Billy  called: 

[63] 


The  Black  Swans 


"Come  quick!  I  heard  it!  I  am  sure 
I  did!" 

I  knew  that  if  matters  were  moving, 
as  I  now  fully  suspected,  some  minutes 
were  likely  to  elapse  before  any  further 
progress  in  the  action  of  the  play  was 
to  be  anticipated,  so  I  did  not  hurry, 
but  making  the  open  window  at  the 
psychological  moment  I  caught  in  sub- 
dued yet  unmistakable  staccato: 

"Kate!  Kate-kate!  Kate!"  Then 
silence. 

The  voice  was  the  same  that  I  had 
thought  I  heard  twenty-four  hours 
previously,  only  now  it  was  stronger. 
Its  exact  location  could  not  be  deter- 
mined, and  I  wasted  no  time  trying 
to  make  out  the  particular  tree  or 
clump  of  bushes  whence  it  had  eman- 
ated, for  long  familiarity  had  made  me 
too  wise  to  expect  any  further  develop- 
ments even  on  the  second  appearance 
of  this  strange  visitor  from  the  un- 
known. I  could  now  figure  with  exact- 
ness. 


The  Case  of  Kate 


"Tomorrow  night,  if  there  be  no 
disturbance  of  the  elements,  at  this 
same  time  he  will  call  again.  Not  only 
that,  but  a  little  something  will  be 
added  to  his  utterance;  and  what  is  of 
much  greater  importance,  he  will  not 
be  alone.  At  least  one  of  his  pals  or 
kinsmen  will  be  with  him." 

And  lo,  on  the  third  night,  promptly 
on  the  hour: 

"  Kate !  Kate-kate !  Kate-kate ! 
Kate-kate!"  and  then  the  other  word, 
which  was  as  sure  to  follow  as  night  is 
certain  to  succeed  the  day,  "Ka-tee- 
did,"  with  the  emphasis  upon  the  last 
syllable.  That  was  all  until  from  an- 
other quarter  came  a  low  "Kate! 
Kate-kate!  Kate-kate!"  from  one  that 
had  just  been  aroused  from  his  long 
sleep. 

So  they  were  here,  sure  enough,  the 
advance  guard  of  our  old  friends.  They 
were  nearly  a  fortnight  ahead  of  their 
accustomed  schedule,  and  on  the  next 
night  two  or  three  more  hatched  out 

[65] 


The  Black  Swans 


and  gave  expression,  twice  repeated, 
to  the  only  word  they  know  when  first 
born;  while  the  pioneer,  now  three 
days  old,  having  finished  the  cicadian 
curriculum  proceeds  to  launch  the 
strange  dispute  that  is  only  ended  by 
the  final  collapse  of  all  who  participate 
so  strenuously  in  it. 

"Kate!  Kate-kate!  Kate-did!  Ka- 
tee-did!  Ka-tee-did!  Kate-did!" 

The  issue  is  now  to  be  squarely 
joined,  for  from  the  next  tree  or  hedge 
comes  the  quick  retort: 

"Kate!  Kate-kate!  Kate-did!  Ka- 
tee-did!  Ka-tee-didn't!  Ka-tee- 
didn't!" 

They  are  off  now  in  a  bunch,  and 
from  that  night  until  frost  stiffens 
their  green  frames,  so  that  they  can  no 
longer  take  a  part  in  the  proceedings, 
the  dispute  goes  on  with  unfailing 
regularity  and  it  is  always  held  under 
time-honored  United  States  Senate 
rules.  The  application  of  cloture  in 
this  case  has  yet  to  come.  They 
[661 


The  Case  of  Kate 


recognize  no  right  on  the  part  of  any 
member  of  their  body  to  try  to  limit 
debate  by  moving  the  "previous  ques- 
tion." Neither  will  they  consent  to 
the  fixing  in  advance  upon  any  hour 
or  time  for  taking  a  vote  on  the  guilt 
or  innocence  of  the  accused.  They 
just  keep  it  up  as  long  as  they  have 
strength  enough  left  in  their  bodies  to 
express  their  sentiments — which  are 
obviously  badly  mixed — and  it  is  not 
until  we  come  to  the  death-bed  evi- 
dence of  the  last  of  the  tribe  that  we 
apparently  get  a  decision;  a  verdict 
which  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
make  out  is  invariably  against  the 
defendant. 

I  have  only  the  highest  respect  for 
those  scientists  who  can  devote  a  life- 
time to  studying  through  a  microscope 
the  eye  of  a  butterfly  or  something 
like  that,  and  then  write  thick  volumes 
setting  forth,  with  a  devotion  worthy 
of  any  cause,  and  illustrated  by  in- 
numerable color  plates  and  careful 

[67] 


The  Black  Swans 


drawings,  the  whole  wonderful  scheme 
disclosed.  And  all  the  while  they 
might  have  been  very  much  more  un- 
profitably  employed.  They  might,  for 
instance,  have  been  selling  to  a  gullible 
public  mining  stocks,  or  oil-lands  on 
the  slopes  of  Popocatepetl,  or  coffee 
plantations  where  the  cocoanuts  and 
paroquets  and  monkeys  grow.  They 
tell  us  many  marvelous  tales  about  the 
bee  and  ant  and  spider  that  many 
generations  of  men  have  accepted  with- 
out question.  There  is  no  one  to  dis- 
pute their  statements  set  forth  as  they 
are  with  such  great  wealth  of  detail. 
Fabres  do  not  live  in  every  generation. 
It  is  not  therefore  for  any  mere  lay- 
man or  woman  to  question  seriously, 
even  for  a  moment,  researches  made 
with  a  patience  that  can  only  evoke 
our  profoundest  admiration.  So  when 
they  tell  us  that  the  male  does  all  the 
talking  in  bugdom,  I  suppose  there 
is  nothing  to  do  but  to  accept  the 
statement.  True,  if  we  mere  humans 
[68] 


The  Case  of  Kate 


stop  to  reason  by  analogy  we  might 
be  quite  inclined  to  question  an  asser- 
tion so  entirely  at  variance  with  our 
own  experience.  In  our  hearts,  how- 
ever, we  can  but  marvel  that  an  All- 
wise  Providence  should  thus  discrim- 
inate as  between  mankind  and  our 
obscure  brothers  of  the  bush.  I  am 
perfectly  willing  to  let  these  teachings 
therefore  go  unchallenged,  because  I 
must  admit  I  have  no  lens  powerful 
enough,  and  have  as  yet  found  no  day 
or  night  long  enough,  to  enable  me  to 
file  any  demurrer  based  on  actual 
personal  investigations  in  this  case  of 
Kate.  But  for  this  admitted  fact,  I 
should  be  inclined  to  reason  thus: 

It  is  a  fair  assumption  that  in  such 
a  long  and  acrimonious  contention  as 
that  concerning  which  we  write,  the 
female  is  morally  certain  to  have  the 
last  word,  the  closing  word,  the  word 
which  finally  prevails  and  is  not  an- 
swered. The  one  fact  we  have  upon 
which  this  verdict  in  Kate's  case  is 

[69] 


The  Black  Swans 


based  is  just  this:  The  last  one  leaves 
off  just  as  the  first  one  began,  or  rather 
I  should  say,  reverses  the  proceeding, 
gradually  dropping  the  "didn't,"  thus 
abandoning  the  denial  and  lapsing  at 
last  into  enforced  acquiescence.  Now 
it  is  a  commonly  accepted  statement 
that  females  are  much  harsher  in  their 
judgments  of  one  another  than  males. 
Where  one  of  their  own  sex  has  been 
accused  of  any  misconduct  they  show 
little  mercy.  They  are  even  sometimes 
accused  of  being  "catty,"  one  with  the 
other.  There  are  of  course  exceptions 
to  this  as  well  as  to  all  other  rules,  but 
in  the  main  they  are  not  naturally 
inclined  to  be  specially  charitable  to 
one  another  in  cases  involving  alleged 
violations  of  the  conventionalities. 
Especially  is  this  apt  to  be  the  case  if 
the  one  sitting  in  judgment  happens  to 
be  old  enough  to  concede  without 
debate  the  probable  error  of  the  ways 
of  those  who  have  perhaps  not  yet 
altogether  settled  down.  So  getting 

[70] 


The  Case  of  Kate 


back  to  the  case  of  Kate,  it  seems  to  me 
foreordained  that  she  is,  under  these 
circumstances,  almost  certain  to  be 
found  guilty.  And  this  is  what  hap- 
pens. 

Weakened  by  exposure  to  cold  wet 
weather  in  the  fall  they  one  by  one 
give  up  the  ghost  and  creep  silently  to 
rest.  The  one  with  the  final  "say" 
having  now  contracted  wing-itis  is,  at 
the  end,  only  able  to  reiterate,  and 
feebly  at  that,  "Ka-tee-did."  All  op- 
position ceases.  And  after  a  pause  it 
all  ends  just  as  it  had  begun  on  July 
twenty-six  with  a  feeble  "Kate-kate! 
Kate-did!"  and  then,  last  word  of  all, 
just  "Kate!" 

I  hold  no  brief  for  Kate,  but  merely 
in  behalf  of  millions  of  lovers  of  truth, 
justice  and  fair  play,  who  know  little 
of  sex  and  songs  and  family  jars  in 
the  insect  world,  and  who  can  with  the 
lights  at  their  command  pursue  no 
other  line  of  reasoning,  I  respectfully 
suggest  to  all  naturalists  of  high  and 


The  Black  Swans 


low  degree  the  possibility  of  error  as 
to  the  male  doing  all  the  talking  in  this 
particular  instance. 

We  don't  know  what  the  charge  has 
been.  Probably  we  never  shall  know. 
We  only  know  that  the  "dids"  win 
out  invariably  at  the  finish.  That 
Kate,  poor  Kate,  whoever  she  is, 
whether  one  of  their  own  number  or 
some  Catherine  of  higher  degree  whose 
fate  has  proved  of  perennial  interest 
to  the  tenants  of  the  hedges;  that  Kate, 
poor  Kate,  whatever  it  is  she  did  or 
didn't  do,  as  matters  stand,  is  most 
assuredly  condemned.  Kate  did  it. 
At  least  so  the  record  uncorrected 
runs. 

And  now  if  you  have  on  your  riding 
"togs"  together  we  will  take  to  Big 
Horn  trails. 


* 


CHAPTER  VI 

Smoke  of  the  H-F  Bar 

YES,  "Smoke."  That  was  his  name. 
He  was  only  a  cow-pony  on  a 
western  ranch,  but  he  was  wise,  and, 
unlike  some  of  his  kind,  quite  an 
agreeable  companion.  In  fact,  I  can 
say  in  truth  we  spent  many  quite  happy 
hours  together.  He  was  not  specially 
communicative,  and  yet  many  a  time 
when  I  had  dismounted  and  thrown 
myself  upon  the  ground  to  rest  and 
get  in  touch  with  all  that  is  revealed 
from  some  of  the  higher  Big  Horn 
slopes,  he  would  pause  now  and  then 
in  his  grazing  by  my  side  to  poke  his 
muzzle  along  the  sleeve  of  my  riding 
coat  and  look  at  me  with  big  brown 
eyes.  Just  what  it  was  he  said  to  me 

[73] 


The  Black  Swans 


I  may  not  tell,  for  it  was  strictly 
entre  nous. 

You  had  only  to  throw  your  reins 
to  the  ground  and  Smoke  was  hitched 
for  the  day,  and  in  the  course  of  six 
weeks  of  intimate  companionship  I 
discovered  that  this  was  specially  true 
if  I  happened — as  was  often  the  case — 
to  stretch  myself  at  his  feet  to  bask 
with  the  "rock-chucks"  in  the  warnu 
high  mountain  sun,  and  enjoy  with 
them  and  Smoke  the  eternal  snows, 
the  towering  rocks,  the  sapphire  sky, 
the  irrigated  valleys  far  below  with 
emerald  green  alfalfa  fields,  or  ponder 
the  inscrutable  mysteries  of  the  distant 
Bad  Lands. 

One  who  has  known  the  joys  that 
wait  upon  a  frosty  morning's  ride 
along  smooth  Appalachian  bridle  paths 
with  a  gaited  southern  mount  will  balk 
at  first  when  he  sees  the  H-F  Bar 
corral  and  its  motley  aggregation  being 
roped  and  cinched.  All  shapes  and 
sizes  and  colors  from  the  speckled 

[74] 


Smoke  of  the  H-F  Bar 


Remingtonians  to  the  comparatively 
shapely  ones  that  show  a  cross  or  two 
of  horse!  But  when  you  know  them 
better  and  grow  familiar  with  the  sort 
of  service  they  perform  for  inexperi- 
enced hands  your  hat  will  come  off  to 
these  same  ragged  rugged  products  of 
an  iron  environment,  and  you  will  know 
that  Nature  rarely  makes  mistakes. 

On  these  self-styled  "dude"  ranches 
of  Wyoming  a  pony  goes  with  each  cot 
and  the  "grub" — all  included  in  the 
price  where  city  folks  now  sometimes 
go  to  make  first-hand  acquaintance 
with  the  west.  At  the  H-F  Bar  the 
pony  is  yours  to  have  and  to  hold — if 
you  can — so  long  as  your  vacation 
lasts.  You  may  not  like  the  first  one 
you  draw,  but  if  it  so  transpires  that 
you  do  not,  you  have  only  to  file 
application  with  Harry,  the  senior 
wrangler,  for  a  change  of  venue,  and 
perhaps  you  will  get  a  worse  one.  Per- 
haps, however,  this  bronzed  and  keen- 
eyed  veteran  who  knows  the  bronco 

[75] 


The  Black  Swans 


as  an  open  book  will  let  you  in  right. 
Harry  and  Ray,  his  tall  and  typical 
moving-picture  mate,  are  all  right. 
They  know  their  business  just  as  the 
ponies  do,  and  that  means  that  they 
all  "savey"  well  their  own  particular 
jobs  and  multifarious  responsibilities. 
You  cannot  say  as  much  for  most  of 
the  eastern  tenderfeet  who  swarm 
around  the  saddles  every  morning. 
Most  of  them  do  not  know  just  what 
they  do  want  in  the  equine  line.  Men 
with  "shot"  nerves,  men  whose  idea 
is  that  heaven  lies  near  where  a 
speckled  beauty  swims  below  the  tip 
of  a  jointed  rod,  women  who  are  look- 
ing for  lost  weight  and  women  who  are 
willing  to  lose  it;  children,  too,  the 
boy  who  buys  a  hunting  knife  and 
"chaps"  before  he  has  been  on  the 
ranch  an  hour,  so  he  can  look  a  cow- 
boy bold,  and  the  "kids"  who  are  to 
have  their  first  lesson  here  perhaps  on 
"Sausage"  or  some  other  fat  old 
veteran  of  the  band. 


Smoke  of  the  H-F  Bar 


Splash  got  his  name,  as  had  Smoke, 
White  Man  and  Blaze  from  peculiar 
color  markings.  Splash  was  Billy's, 
and  the  only  "racker"  on  the  ranch. 
He  was  black,  with  a  few  white 
splotches,  and  here  and  there  the 
black  and  white  so  intermingled  as  to 
produce  a  peculiar  grizzled  mixture. 
He  was  nimble  on  his  feet,  quick  as 
a  cat  and  the  easiest-gaited  pony  on 
the  ranch.  In  common  with  all  the 
rest,  however,  he  invariably  took  the 
first  touch  of  your  toe  in  the  stirrup 
as  the  signal  to  be  off.  You  are  sup- 
posed to  swing  yourself  up  into  the 
saddle  as  they  fly  away.  Billy  can  tell 
you  best  about  this.  She  made  a 
noble  effort  one  fine  morning  to  get 
aboard  in  time,  but  Splash  was  just 
a  little  bit  too  quick.  But  she  will 
have  to  tell  of  that  herself. 

Blaze  was  a  decidedly  good  mount. 
There  is  real  horse  in  him.  That  is  to 
say,  he  was  not  of  the  pure  native 
blood.  In  conformation,  size  and  gen- 

[77] 


The  Black  Swans 


eral  character  he  stood  out  somewhat 
from  the  common  herd.  And  he,  like 
Splash,  was  not  assigned  promiscuous- 
ly. He  was  one  of  those  face-cards  in 
the  pack,  apparently  held  up  his  sleeve 
by  Harry,  to  be  dealt  only  to  some  one 
who  had  first  demonstrated  a  capacity 
for  really  enjoying  his  good  points. 
This  chanced  to  be  Lucile.  Now  Lucile 
had  not  been  just  fortunate  in  the 
original  draw.  Her  first  one  was  too 
slow,  and  Prince  had  proved  a  surly, 
heady  brute,  always  looking  for  a 
chance  to  get  the  bit  between  his 
teeth  and  go.  White  Man,  a  little  the 
worse  for  wear  perhaps,  but  still  with 
much  in  his  favor,  was  the  next  candi- 
date, but  one  day  he  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  fall  flat,  so  still  another  was 
requisitioned.  The  lady  had  through 
all  this  clearly  established  her  claim 
to  better  treatment,  and  thus  it  came 
to  pass  that  Blaze  was  duly  awarded 
her,  and  so  far  as  I  know  ridden  hap- 
pily ever  after. 

[78] 


Smoke  of  the  H-F  Bar 


Wise,  did  I  say?  Solomon  in  all  his 
glory  or  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  him- 
self in  wig  and  gown,  may  be  set  down 
as  "pikers"  in  comparison  with  these 
hundred  ponies  of  the  H-F  Bar.  What 
they  do  not  know  about  life  on  their 
own  stony  hills  and  treacherous  trails 
would  not  be  worth  printing.  And 
they  have  come  to  know  the  "dude" 
and  his  ways  quite  as  well,  and  how 
they  do  delight  to  "work"  him!  When 
it  comes  to  wrestling  with  the  hard- 
ships and  the  dangers  of  the  wild,  in 
the  hard  school  of  which  they  were 
born  and  bred,  they  act  on  instinct 
infallible.  There  are  certain  things 
they  fear.  Their  ancestors  before  them 
contended  for  their  own  in  a  land 
where  safety  and  comfort  might  often 
be  the  reward  of  cunning,  vigilance  or 
speed.  And  they  are  suspicious,  or  pre- 
tend to  be.  The  language  and  actions 
of  the  "dude"  they  do  not  understand. 
In  fact,  they  usually  pride  themselves 
upon  not  comprehending  his  meaning. 

[79] 


The  Black  Swans 


And  probably  experience  has  taught 
them  that  their  own  way — which  they, 
like  some  of  the  rest  of  us,  dearly  love 
to  have — is  apt  to  be  the  best  way,  at 
least  for  themselves. 

To  begin  with,  they  are  "broken" 
literally,  not  figuratively,  speaking. 
As  colts  big  enough  to  be  bitted,  they 
will  not  surrender  their  native  inborn 
love  of  liberty,  their  right  to  run  the 
range  without  restraint,  until  con- 
quered by  a  force  they  are  incapable 
of  indefinitely  resisting — such  as  Ray, 
for  instance,  at  the  end  of  that  long 
and  merciless  rope.  They  are  sub- 
jected to  the  gross  indignity  of  the 
saddle  only  by  the  exercise  of  brute 
force  ruthlessly  applied.  And  a  game 
fight,  too,  the  best  ones  make  before 
they  sue  for  peace,  and  in  the  case  of  the 
more  indomitable  spirits  among  them, 
they  accept  their  bondage  with  a  well 
defined  mental  reservation.  Some  of 
them  have  therefore  to  be  "broken"  all 
over  again  now  and  then.  Ray  is  quick 
[8ol 


Smoke  of  the  H-F  Bar 


to  detect  the  first  signs  of  insubordina- 
tion in  the  ranks,  and  enjoys  nothing 
better  than  bringing  a  rebellious  sub- 
ject helpless  to  his  knees  with  that  rope 
which  every  member  of  the  devoted 
band  knows  only  too  well  and  fears. 

I  have  said  the  ponies  are  suspicious. 
Some  of  them  evidently  know  the  old 
Greek  fable  of  the  Wooden  Horse  on 
the  plains  of  Troy.  They  have  a 
wholesome  dread  of  people  displaying 
an  affection  which  your  true  bronco  be- 
lieves in  his  wild  heart  to  be  but  mere 
pretense.  This  I  have  seen  clearly 
revealed  by  the  expression  in  the  eye  of 
a  genuine  child  of  the  equine  wilder- 
ness when  some  animal-loving  indivi- 
dual caressed  or  petted  him.  Suspicion 
in  every  glance!  They  know  better! 
Some  evil  intent,  some  plot  against 
their  comfort,  is  certainly  impending! 
They  are  glad  when  the  ordeal  is  over, 
and  breathe  freely  once  again. 

They  may  shy  unceremoniously  at 
a  bit  of  paper  or  any  little  thing  seen 


The  Black  Swans 


along  the  trail  that  is  not  strictly 
speaking  a  part  of  the  accustomed 
landscape.  Nothing  of  this  sort  escapes 
the  more  acute  among  them.  Indians 
cannot  read  "signs"  more  accurately. 
All  sorts  of  frightful-looking  natural 
objects  such  as  might  well  throw  a 
high-mettled  Kentucky  gaited  saddler 
into  fits,  are  passed  by  unnoticed. 
They  know  all  that  of  old,  but  if  any- 
thing lies  in  their  paths  that  was  not 
there  the  last  time  they  passed  that 
way  beware!  Even  a  stone  out  of  its 
usual  place  does  not  escape  them.  I 
had  quite  an  argument  one  day  with 
Smoke,  reliable  as  he  was,  on  this 
latter  subject,  and  he  had  me  well 
backed  off  under  the  alders  by  the  ford 
before  spurs  vigorously  applied  in- 
duced him  to  admit  that  it  might  be 
safe  for  him  to  proceed,  which  he 
finally  did  with  a  defiant  snort. 

Riding  in  the  open  the  ponies  go 
confidently     ahead  —  Indian     file    of 
course.     They    know    nothing    about 
[82] 


Smoke  of  the  H-F  Bar 


traveling  abreast.  The  trails  they 
know  best  do  not  admit  of  that  sort  of 
progress  even  if  they  knew  how,  which 
they  do  not,  and  the  lead  pony  is  the 
scout  that  scents  all  danger  for  the 
party.  Those  that  follow  at  his  heels 
have  little  concern  as  to  what  lies  on 
ahead  or  'round  about.  They  know 
that  if  a  lion,  or  a  twig  bent  the  wrong 
way,  looms  up  to  devour  them,  the 
head  of  the  line  will  be  the  victim,  so 
the  rest  may  go  to  sleep  in  safety.  It 
is  when  your  trail  leads  you  into  thick 
high  grass  or  any  close-set  brushy 
growth  that  a  wise  cow  pony  becomes 
most  alert.  His  ears  and  eyes  are  all 
attention  now,  and  he  takes  no  pains 
to  conceal  the  fact  that  he  is  not 
enjoying  it  a  little  bit.  In  fact,  he 
would  rather  scale  a  perpendicular 
granite  wall,  and  at  great  expenditure 
of  effort  go  well  around  this  hated 
cover  with  its  unknown  risks,  than 
dare  the  dangers  which  he  consistently 
insists  are  lying  in  wait  within. 

[83] 


The  Black  Swans 


In  common  with  all  the  rest  Smoke 
would  of  course  be  called  rough  gaited 
by  eastern  riding-masters.  Still  his 
trot  was  not  bad,  and,  when  in  the 
mood,  he  could  out-walk  most  of  the 
company,  especially  when  headed 
home.  They  all  have  the  corral  and 
the  hill  pasture  at  the  ranch  ever  in 
their  craniums.  The  return  trip  is 
therefore  apt  to  develop  into  a  rattling 
race,  and  when  Smoke  breaks  into  that 
gallop  it  seems  to  me,  as  his  heavy 
hoofs  come  down,  that  every  foothill, 
every  towering  mountain  from  Cloud 
Peak  to  Castle  Rock,  fairly  trembles 
beneath  the  shock. 

Dear  old  "Smoke!"  I  can  see  him 
now!  Buck  skin  with  black  points, 
trained  in  all  the  tricks  and  turns  of  the 
cattle  "round  up,"  steadfast,  sturdy 
and  sensible — at  least  from  his  own 
eminently  practical  viewpoint — he  did 
the  best  he  could  with  the  handicap  he 
carried  to  make  one  visit  to  the  H-F 
Bar  an  experience  long  to  be  remem- 

[84] 


Smoke  of  the  H-F  Bar 


bered.  More  socially  inclined  than 
many  of  his  mates,  I  think  that 
towards  the  last  he  began  to  know  that 
I  at  least  was  not  necessarily  hostile, 
for  he  not  only  did  not  resent  friendly 
advances,  but  in  those  late  August  days 
upon  the  mountain  sides  when  he  and 
I  were  often  all  alone  up  there  between 
the  earth  and  sky  he  sometimes  came 
quite  close  unbidden.  And  one  day  at 
"The  Chimneys"  we  found 

Our  Lady  of  the  Silences 

[Lines  inspired  by  a  remarkable  rock  formation  seen  in 
the  Big  Horn  Mountains  of  Wyoming,  August,  1917] 

Cast  in  granite,  clad  in  majesty, 
Changeless,  immutable  as  the  Titan  hills 
On  which  thy  gaze  forever  eastward  rests, 
Enthroned  on  high  with  trackless  forests  at 

thy  feet, 

Dumb  witness  thou  through  centuries 
Of  all  the  miracles  that  mark 
The  advent  of  the  darkness  and  the  dawn, 
Steadfast    alike    through    wintry    winds    and 

fervid  suns, 

The  secrets  of  the  stars  and  storms  are.  thine, 
And  'round  thy  riven  rock  the  lightnings  play. 


The  Black  Swans 


No  sounds  of  earth  or  air  or  sky 

On  those  Olympian  heights 

Disturb  thy  timeless  vigil. 

Blind  to  the  passing  of  the  circling  years, 

Deaf  to  the  voice  of  birds  or  beasts 

That  come   and   go,   ye   know   nor   care   not 

whence 
Nor  whither; 

Yesterday,  today,  tomorrow;  all  as  one  to  thee; 
What  is  thy  mystery? 

Far  down  below  thy  lofty  crag  a  smiling  valley 

lies, 

Here,  midst  the  nodding  ferns, 
Where  dainty  wild  flowers  blow, 
A  swiftly  speeding  crystal  stream 
Nursed  by  eternal  snows, 
Flows  through  green  fields  that  skirt  a  trail 
Men  say  leads  on  to  Paradise. 

Here,  on  a  mossy  bank,  one  golden  summer 

day, 

One  weak  and  heavy  laden  came  to  rest; 
And  by  the  cooling  waters  of  the  limpid  brook, 
Pillowed    upon    the    loving   lap    of    dear   old 

Mother  Earth, 

With  face  upturned  toward  the  azure  vault, 
Thy  noble  figure,  faintly  limned  at  first, 
Burst  on  his  view, 
And  slowly  taking,  form  against  the  blue 

[86] 


Smoke  of  the  H-F  Bar 


At  last  stood  forth  revealed. 

And  in  the  presence  of  thy  dignity  supreme, 

And  in  the  story  of  thy  resignation,  writ  in 

rock, 
Was  born  a  thought: 

"Like  unto  thee, 

Thou  silent  priestess  of  the  mountain  pass, 

Guarding  by  night  and  day  the  way  to  higher 

paths, 

My  soul  is  set  as  stone  in  adoration  adamant; 
Set  by  some  Power  whose  ways  we  know  not 

nor  can  stay; 

Set,  even  as  thy  graven  face  is  set, 
Towards  visions  fair  as  rosy-tinted  morn, 
And  doomed  like  thee 

To  see  the  hope  that's  born  anew  each  day, 
Fade  far  away  each  night. 

"  Still  shall  I  watch  and  wait  like  thee 

Dwelling  in  solitude  immeasurable  as  thine, 

Faithful  and  true  to  my  ideal, 

Until  the  striking  of  the  hour  when  I  shall  heed 

The  sunbeams  and  the  pale  moon-rays 

And  clouds  that  shroud  a  fading  world 

As  little  as  dost  thou." 


87] 


CHAPTER  VII 

Told  in  the  Firelight 

SPEAKING  of  fires,  we  had  one  on 
the  rocks  for  two  successive  nights 
way  up  in  the  higher  range  that  was 
a  campfire  sure  enough.  We  were  on  a 
three-day  trip  to  Little  Frying  Pan 
Lake  where  the  mountain  trout  are  so 
plentiful  and  friendly  that  they  swim 
between  your  knees  as  you  stand  there 
in  your  "waders"  begging  you  to  take 
them  first  instead  of  casting  farther 
out.  I  knew  almost  as  much  about  fly- 
casting  as  Smoke  knew  of  Sanskrit, 
so  it  was  well  for  me  that. Lake  Fry- 
ing Pan  trout  were  so  utterly  reck- 
less. As  it  was  I  beat  the  surface  of 
the  water  so  effectually  in  my  efforts 
at  learning  how  to  throw  a  fly  that 

[89] 


The  Black  Swans 


I  drove  fish  by  the  school  into  Clif- 
ford's basket.  He  couldn't  cast  fast 
enough  to  accommodate  the  game  I 
threshed  his  way.  After  landing  a 
few  by  main  strength  and  awkward- 
ness as  against  mere  skill,  I  suc- 
cumbed to  the  heat  and  mosquitoes 
and  went  ashore,  for  was  Smoke  not 
there  and  Ed,  good  guide,  unequaled 
cook  and  general  manager?  And  up 
above  did  not  the  snow-filled  gulches 
beckon?  I  had  often  seen  the  white- 
topped  peaks,  and  had  half  believed 
it  possible  that  it  was  really  snow 
they  carried  in  spite  of  the  torrid  mid- 
day temperatuje  at  lower  levels,  but 
I  now  made  up  my  mind  to  find  out 
for  certain  on  my  own  account,  and 
soon  we  were  on  our  way.  Yes,  it 
was  snow  all  right,  for  we  scrambled 
over  it,  and  up  above  alongside  the 
giant  boulders  of  the  peak  the  blue 
forget-me-nots  were  blooming  in  what 
seemed  up  there  to  be  an  April  sun  and 
atmosphere. 

[90] 


Told  in  the  Firelight 


Camp  was  reached  at  sun-down. 
The  supper  a  Lucullus  feast!  A  cloud- 
less night;  in  fact,  a  night  above  the 
clouds  came  on,  and,  as  a  full  moon 
shed  its  glory  over  all,  the  logs  and 
stumps  and  boughs  of  pine  and  spruce 
and  fir,  piled  high  upon  the  rocks,  soon 
flashed  their  flaming  message  to  the 
skies.  And  by  and  by  the  fire  burns 
low.  The  coyotes  are  barking  down 
there  where  the  ponies  graze,  and  a 
story  of  the  West  that  is  no  more  has 
forced  itself  upon  me. 

The  round-up  at  the  Seven  Pastures 
and  another  we  had  subsequently  seen 
had  been  among  our  late  experiences. 
Old-timers  like  Burnett  and  Hess  over 
there  near  Buffalo  will  tell  you  these 
are  but  tame  affairs  in  these  degenerate 
days,  but  still  they  are  not  altogether 
wanting  even  now  in  interest.  The 
various  participating  outfits  have  the 
cattle  well  in  hand  gathered  from  the 
four  quarters.  Some  have  already 
reached  the  appointed  place,  and  way 

[91] 


The  Black  Swans 


off  yonder  in  the  north  or  east  or  south 
or  west  a-  trampling  host  of  Herefords 
and  Shorthorns  come  a-trooping  down 
the  hills,  a  solid  mass  of  beef  upon  the 
hoof.  They  are  so  far  away  at  first 
they  seem  mere  specks  upon  the  hori- 
zon, but  as  they  come  nearer  and 
nearer  you  can  distinguish  forms  and 
colors.  Everywhere  the  unmistakable 
badge  of  the  hardy,  red-robed,  white- 
faced  Hereford !  The  cows  with  young- 
est calves  come  last.  Some  of  the 
babies,  weakened  by  their  journey 
from  the  far-off  pastures,  sank  at  once 
when  the  herd  was  halted.  Pandemo- 
nium reigned.  Many  a  mother  had 
been  separated  from  her  calf,  but  the 
bawling  of  the  cows  was  music  to  the 
ears  of  the  man  who  counted  a  good 
crop  ready  for  the  branding.  You 
know  the  rest. 

We  sat  there  in  our  saddles  and 
watched  the  horned  hundreds  as  they 
passed;  and  in  the  long  parade  I  saw 
one  poor  old  cripple  with  the  roan  coat 

[92] 


Told  in  the  Firelight 


of  the  Shorthorn,  the  white  face  of  the 
Hereford  and  the  great  wide-spreading 
up-turned  horns  of  the  old-time  Texan. 
Obviously  she  embodied  within  herself 
the  whole  story  of  the  western  cattle 
trade;  the  passing  of  the  red  men  and 
the  buffalo,  the  first  great  invasion  of 
the  wilderness  by  the  southern  Long- 
horns,  the  frightful  losses  suffered  in 
the  early  days  and  the  subsequent 
reoccupation  of  the  ranges  under  better 
control  and  management.  All  this 
and  more  was  now  recalled  by  the 
smouldering  embers  of  our  dying  camp 
fire  in  the  mountains,  and  some  lines  * 
I  once  had  written  now  came  clearly 
back: 

*  PUBLISHER'S  NOTE. —  Some  years  ago  Mr.  Sanders 
prepared  at  the  solicitation  of  leading  western  ranchmen 
and  cattle  breeders  a  volume  of  about  1,000  pages  which 
he  called  "The  Story  of  the  Herefords."  This  bit  of  verse 
was  added  as  an  appendix  to  that  work,  which  is  highly 
technical  in  its  character  and  naturally  makes  little  appeal 
to  the  general  reader  not  interested  in  the  subject  matter. 
Many  of  the  author's  friends  have  asked  that  "The 
Coming  of  the  Cattle"  therefore  be  printed  now  in  some 
shape  where  it  would  be  generally  available.  Hence  its 
incorporation  in  this  sketch. 

[93] 


The -Black  Swans 


The  Coming  of  the  Cattle 

Ever  as  the  evening  shadows 

Deepen  o'er  the  plains  and  prairies, 

Ever  as  the  darkness  gathers 

'Round  the  foot-hills  and  the  mountains, 

In  the  fire-light  there  are  phantoms, 

In  the  pine-trees  mystic  murmurs, 

Spirit  voices  calling  ever 

From  the  land  beyond  the  sun-set. 

There  is  moon-light  on  the  mesa, 

Stars  are  shining  o'er  the  sages, 

And  the  night-wind  from  the  desert 

Bears  upon  its  wings  the  wailing 

Of  the  red  men  in  their  lodges, 

Of  the  dwellers  in  the  canons, 

Of  the  children  of  the  vegas, 

Of  the  bison  on  the  meadows, 

Of  the  grizzlies  in  the  gulches, 

Of  the  wolves  upon  the  barrens; 

And  forever  in  the  gloaming 

As  the  Great  Bear  watches  o'er  them 

Can  be  heard  their  plaintive  story 

Of  the  peace  upon  the  ranges, 

Of  the  fatness  of  the  grazing, 

Of  the  plenty  in  the  valleys, 

Of  the  shelter  in  the  forest 

In  the  days  before  the  coming 

Of  the  pale-face  and  the  cattle. 

[94] 


Told  in  the  Firelight 


Countless  moons  had  passed  above  them, 
Nature's  creatures  of  the  dry-lands, 
And  their  comrades  of  the  high-lands. 
Generations  came  and  vanished; 
Still  there  came  naught  to  appal  them. 

Feared  they  not  the  fangs  of  winter, 
Nor  the  flaming  breath  of  summer, 
For  the  north-wind  was  their  keeper 
And  the  south  a  loving  mother; 
And  the  wandering  breezes  told  not, 
And  the  rippling  rivers  sang  not 
Of  the  evil  days  impending. 
But  the  thunder  clouds  were  hanging 
Heavy  o'er  the  hapless  races. 
Moons  of  plenty  shine  not  always, 
Bluest  skies  at  last  are  blackened, 
Lightnings  hover  in  the  sunshine, 
Longest  trails  must  have  an  ending. 
And  there  came  the  day  of  waking. 

Signs  portentous  in  the  heavens, 
Fires  by  night  and  clouds  at  noon-day, 
Told  of  trampling  hosts  advancing, 
From  the  distant  Rio  Grande. 

Hoofs  were  heard  along  the  Brazos, 
Horns  were  tossing  on  the  Pecos! 
From  the  far-off  southern  pastures, 
From  the  waters  of  the  Concho, 

[95] 


The  Black  Swans 


From  the  grassy  realms  of  Texas, 
Day  by  day  in  countless  numbers 
Pressed  the  cattle  to  the  conquest. 
Northward,  westward,  ever  northward, 
Toward  the  sunny  plains  of  Kansas, 
Toward  the  walls  of  Colorado. 

Night  by  night  their  bed-grounds  found  them 
Nearer  still  and  always  nearer 
To  the  nameless  unknown  perils 
Of  the  Northland  they  had  entered 
On  the  trails  that  led  not  backward. 

Not  the  pangs  of  thirst  nor  hunger, 
Not  the  northern  storm-cloud's  warning, 
Not  the  stampede  in  the  darkness, 
Not  the  seas  of  fire  that  threatened 
On  the  wind-swept  blazing  prairies 
Stayed  them  in  their  great  migration 
As  they  journeyed  ever  onward 
Toward  the  sand  hills  of  Nebraska, 
Toward  the  Bad  Lands  of  Dakota, 
Northward,  westward,  ever  northward. 

And  the  Chinook  came  to  cheer  them. 
Higher  still  and  ever  higher 
Newer  pastures  bloomed  and  beckoned. 
Where  the  Yellowstone  was  flowing, 
Where  the  wide  Missouri  wandered, 
Where  Montana's  peaks  were  gleaming, 

[96] 


Told  in  the  Firelight 


Where  the  Big  Horn  dreamed  of  battle, 
Where  Wyoming's  highest  ranges 
Led  up  to  the  lofty  passes, 
To  the  parting  of  the  waters, 
Came  the  cow-men  and  their  cattle, 
Came  the  bronco  and  the  buster, 
Came  the  camp-fire  and  the  cabin, 
Came  the  round-up  and  the  branding. 

Where  the  silent  snowy  summits 

Guard  the  Colorado's  sources, 

Where  the  darkly-frowning  forests 

Hide  the  Rio  Grande's  fountains, 

Lo,  the  west  wind  came  a-sighing, 

Came  a-telling  of  the  coming 

Of  the  cattle  to  the  empire 

That  belonged  to  Montezuma 

In  the  days  before  the  Spaniards. 

Told  of  hoof-prints  of  the  Longhorn 

And  of  lowing  herds  a-basking 

In  the  sunshine  everlasting, 

Where  the  antelope  and  bison 

And  the  cliff-men  of  the  canons 

Had  for  ages  all  unbroken 

Roamed  and  reared  their  happy  children. 

Vainly  had  the  dread  Mojave, 
Vainly  had  the  high  Sierra 
Stayed  the  coming  of  the  cattle 
On  the  trail  of  Coronado; 

[97] 


The  Black  Swans 


For  they  failed  not  in  their  daring 
Till  beyond  the  burning  desert 
Far  beyond  the  jagged  sky-line 
In  a  flowery  land  and  fruitful 
Billows  beating  on  the  sand-dunes, 
Thundering  on  the  rocky  headlands, 
Marked  the  ending  of  the  grazing. 

From  their  ancient  haunts  the  hunted 
Creatures  that  the  wild  had  nurtured, 
Driven  from  their  lands  and  waters, 
Now  in  sullen  stealth  retreated 
To  their  secret  rocks  of  refuge, 
Calling  on  their  sleeping  war-gods: 
Prayed  that  elemental  furies 
Might  be  loosed  upon  the  ranges. 

And  the  strangers  all  unconscious 
That  the  earth  would  soon  be  shaking 
With  the  anger  of  the  heavens 
Went  their  way  in  peace  and  feared  not. 

As  the  eagle  from  his  eyrie 
Hurls  himself  upon  his  quarry, 
As  the  arrow  from  the  cord  flies, 
As  the  lion  on  his  prey  springs, 
As  a  wounded  herd  bull  charging, 
So  the  wilderness  revolted; 
So  did  Manitou  awaken, 
Swift  to  punish  and  to  chasten. 

[98] 


Told  in  the  Firelight 


Through  the  Northland  arctic  demons 
Rode  the  frozen  ice-bound  ranges; 
Through  the  Southland  fiery  dragons 
Scourged  the  earth  with  blazing  horrors. 
Then  the  drifting  to  the  death-traps! 
Hopeless  struggling  of  the  helpless ! 
Herds  a-wreck  from  drouth  and  famine! 
Bleaching  bones  to  tell  the  story! 

As  the  spear  by  shield  is  shattered, 
As  the  shore  turns  back  the  waters, 
As  the  rock  resists  the  torrent, 
So  the  wild  enforced  her  mandates, 
Claimed  her  tribute  of  the  reckless, 
Taught  the  lesson  of  the  ages. 
Nature  brooks  not  mad  defiance! 

But  the  earth  renewed  its  fruitage. 
Sunbeams  dancing  on  the  ranges, 
Waters  from  the  purple  mountains, 
Soft  airs  from  the  western  ocean, 
Called  the  grasses  from  their  slumbers, 
Clothed  again  the  world  with  verdure. 
And  again  the  herds  were  gathered, 
Not  with  folly  in  the  councils, 
Not  with  blind  chiefs  in  the  saddles. 
Children  scorched  by  fire  have  wisdom. 

On  the  trails  that  led  not  backward 
Once  again  the  cattle  entered; 

[99] 


The  Black  Swans 


Once  again  the  herds  were  scattered 
Far  and  wide  across  the  pastures; 
At  their  head  a  pale-faced  stranger 
Staunch  of  limb  and  lion-hearted, 
From  beyond  the  deep  sea  waters, 
From  the  distant  shores  of  England. 
His  the  heritage  of  ages 
From  the  hills  of  grim  Glamorgan; 
His  the  power  that  was  descended 
Through  the  Hereford  generations, 
From  the  wearing  of  the  burdens 
Of  the  yoke  of  heavy  hauling, 
From  a  life  of  toil  and  travail 
In  the  service  of  his  masters. 

Proud  the  bearing  of  this  chieftain 
As  he  armed  them  for  the  battle; 
Wrapped  them  in  red  robes  of  courage, 
Bound  them  by  the  ties  of  kindred 
As  of  tribes  by  blood  united; 
Filled  them  with  his  dauntless  spirit, 
Taught  them  how  to  meet  privations, 
Taught  them  how  to  face  the  northers, 
Winter's  stress  and  summer's  terrors; 
Fought  their  fight  through  many  perils, 
Led  them  bravely  through  all  dangers, 
Grasped  dominion  of  the  ranges, 
Held  them  in  secured  possession, 
Brought  the  cattle  to  their  kingdom. 

[iool 


Told  in  the  Firelight' 


As  the  leaves  fall  in  October, 

As  the  stream  dies  in  the  quicksands, 

As  the  snow  melts  in  the  sun  rays, 

So  the  children  of  the  open, 

Of  the  mountain,  plain  and  valley, 

Fled  before  the  rail  and  rifle, 

Fled  before  the  conquering  cattle, 

Farther  still  and  ever  farther 

To  the  bosom  of  the  river 

That  is  bearing  them  forever 

Through  the  land  of  the  Hereafter. 

The  fire  is  ashes  now.  Ed  has  told 
his  last  bear  story  and  it  is  growing 
cold.  The  day  is  done.  Our  shoes  are 
hid  away  beyond  the  reach  of  prowling 
porcupines.  We  seek  our  sleeping  bags, 
and  say  "Good  Night."  Next  day  we 
ride  away.  Back  to  the  little  slab-side 
cabin  by  the  creek. 

September  now  is  near.  Vacation 
days  are  over,  and  the  hour  arrives 
when  we  must  say  good-bye  to  Smoke 
and  other  loved  companions  of  the 
trails.  We  are  leaving  on  the  morrow. 
The  evening  star  has  set  behind  the 
western  walls.  A  curtain  dark  is 
fioil 


The  Black  Swans 


drawn  o'er  hill  and  dale.  The  last 
long  silent  hours  have  come.  And  all 
night  long  a  voice  that  calls  to  me  un- 
ceasing through  the  years  is  heard;  a 
voice  that  shall  be  heard  so  long  as 
summer  breezes  stir  green  leaves  and 
flowing  waters  gurgle  by  their  willowed 
shores. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

"Tick-Tock"  Talk 

ON  our  return  the  old  clock  is  wig- 
wagging away  in  its  accustomed 
place  just  as  on  the  day  we  left.  It 
has  one  virtue  not  possessed  by  the 
fire-place;  it  is  always  alive  and  ticking. 
The  hearth  cheers  only  when  the  tem- 
perature outside  permits  or  demands 
its  use.  At  other  times  it  is  a  purely 
negative  blessing,  loved  and  valued 
for  faithful  service  rendered  in  the  past, 
and  prized  and  longingly  regarded  for 
its  potential  powers  and  latent  pos- 
sibilities. But  the  clock  will  talk  to 
you  at  any  time,  and  those  who  have 
ears  to  hear  its  calm  and  even-tem- 
pered comment  will  find  it  oftentimes 
dispensing  very  sound  philosophy.  It 

[103] 


The  Black  Swans 


seems  to  have  such  a  serene,  contented 
viewpoint,  and  when  you  return  from 
town  or  from  wanderings  far  afield  in 
quest  each  of  his  own  particular  will 
o'  the  wisp  it  invites  attention  at  once 
to  the  fact  that  many  of  the  best 
things  in  life  really  come  to  those  who 
only  "stand  and  wait"  and  bide  their 
time.  Why  race  up  and  down  the 
world  indeed  in  frantic  search  of  this 
or  that  supposed  desideratum  when 
all  you  have  to  do  is  to  choose  a  cosy 
corner  in  a  cottage  near  an  open  win- 
dow where  you  can  see  each  day  and 
night  all  that  is  really  most  beautiful 
in  all  the  world?  The  true  measure  of 
all  happy  hours  is  peace. 

The  clock  is  not  the  only  thing  about 
the  place  that  takes  this  complacent 
view.  There  is  an  old  gray  cat  there 
curled  up  fast  asleep  upon  a  soft 
cushion  Billy  made  for  his  especial 
benefit.  You  could  not  excite  that  cat 
of  ours  about  anything  in  this  world. 
In  fact,  he  has  not  even  the  feline 
[  104] 


"Tick-Tock"  Talk 


fault  of  staying  out  late  o'  nights. 
He  is  just  a  model;  that's  all  you  can 
say  about  him.  And  I  use  that  word 
advisedly,  for  he  was  first  cast  in  clay 
or  something,  then  duly  decorated,  set 
in  an  oven  and  baked,  and  lo!  behold 
the  best  kind  of  a  cat  in  all  this  world — 
a  life-size  china  cat! 

I  dearly  love  a  good  dog,  and  I  have 
no  quarrel  with  those  who  may  be 
fond  of  cats,  but  to  my  mind  the 
best  cat  is  like  the  best  Indian.  They 
may  be  all  right  around  old  barns  and 
corn  cribs  built  before  this  cement  age 
of  ours.  I  suppose  they  scare  some 
rats  away,  and  now  and  then  get  one, 
but  you  can  get  more  effective  rat  and 
mice  exterminators  at  the  druggist's  or 
your  hardware  dealer's  that  eat  no 
meat  and  consume  neither  milk  nor 
songbirds,  so  I  stand  by  our  china  cat. 
As  a  living-room  decoration  he  fits 
in  with  the  clock,  and  adds  a  little 
touch  to  the  picture  made  by  the  fire 
at  night. 

[105! 


The  Black  Swans 


Yes,  and  we  have  some  other  pets 
around  the  cottage.  Billy  has  three 
birds,  a  parrot,  a  canary  and  an  un- 
identified wood  bird  not  native  to  these 
parts.  Fortunately  Polly  does  not 
talk.  She  just  sits  up  on  her  perch  on 
the  top  of  a  long  stick  that  Billy  has 
stuck  into  the  middle  of  a  basket  of 
palms  and  ferns  with  a  snake  plant 
in  the  center.  Here  again  food  con- 
servation and  other  economic  ques- 
tions have  had  due  and,  it  seems  to 
me,  most  intelligent  handling,  for  the 
parrot  is  a  wooden  one  and  gaily 
painted. 

The  canary's  cage  is  a  rectangular 
Japanese  bamboo  creation  with  arch- 
ing roof.  Billy  has  painted  it  yellow 
trimmed  with  black.  On  its  tip-top 
tiny  French  and  British  flags  are  flying. 
Silk  tassels,  red,  yellow,  blue  and  green, 
are  pendant  from  each  corner.  Inside 
the  bird  sits  in  his  swinging  ring;  the 
outfit  suspended  from  the  ceiling  by  a 
string  turning  lazily  from  time  to 
f  106! 


"  Tick-Tock  "  Talk 


time,  from  side  to  side.  Now  that  we 
have  well  resolved  that  we  shall  no 
longer  patronize  distinctively  German 
industries,  we  do  not  propose  to  lend 
further  aid  or  comfort  to  Harz  Moun- 
tain nests,  and  so  our  canary  is  china 
too!  Think  of  the  seed  we  save!  We 
used  to  buy  it  by  the  bag  for  a  bunch 
of  yellow  warblers  we  once  possessed  in 
town.  Of  course  we  always  have 
"Jim"  Mann's  annual  congressional 
donation  of  packets  to  help  out  some, 
but  nowadays  these  have  to  go  to  the 
sparrows. 

I  once  saw  a  red  bird — the  kind  they 
have  in  Kansas — wired  in  for  the  sup- 
posed gratification  of  the  inmates  of  a 
certain  human  habitation.  I  say  in- 
mates, because  that  is  the  correct 
term,  I  believe,  to  apply  to  those 
incarcerated  persons  who  are  crazy. 
Of  course  no  sane  person  would  think 
of  killing  thus  by  inches  one  of  the 
finest  of  God's  feathered  creations. 
Our  wild-wood  bird  with  black  tail, 
[107] 


The  Black  Swans 


green  back  and  wings,  white  breast, 
black-and-white  speckled  neck  and  red 
crest  is  usually  to  be  found  on  the 
table  just  back  of  the  big,  soft-cush- 
ioned davenport  standing  always  in- 
vitingly before  the  fire-place.  I  don't 
know  just  what  the  ware  is  called,  but 
it  is  highly  glazed  and  of  English 
origin,  and  the  bird  mourns  not  lost 
freedom.  The  swans  of  iron  complete 
our  present  list  of  household  pets. 

I  am  sure  the  old  clock  quite  ap- 
proves. If  you  must  have  birds,  in  a 
country  place  especially,  buy  them  at 
any  good  department  store.  Leave 
nests  alone.  Let  the  oaks  and  elms 
and  maples  be  your  cages.  They  do 
not  crush  and  break  bird  health  and 
hearts,  and  my  word  for  it — a  china 
cat. 

I  think  you  have  now  been  intro- 
duced to  all  the  members  of  the  house- 
hold— excepting  certain  pictures,  books 
and  spirits  that  are  an  intimate  part 
of  life  at  Dumbiedykes.  You  see  I  am 
[108] 


"  Tick-Tock  "  Talk 


very  fond  of  company;  I  mean  the  right 
kind  of  company — congenial  com- 
pany— and  it  is  not  always  with  those 
who  talk  most  that  we  spend  our 
happiest  hours.  The  clock  talks  a  lot 
to  be  sure,  but  is  so  quietly  unobtru- 
sive about  it  that  it  gets  not  on  your 
nerves.  It  is  the  only  being  I  know 
that  can  monopolize  a  conversation — I 
mean  talk  all  the  time,  even  while  you 
yourself  are  talking — and  not  be  rude 
about  it. 

I  suppose  there  isn't  really  much 
excuse  for  a  fire  this  evening.  The 
doors  are  open,  but  the  sun  is  setting 
earlier  these  days  than  it  did  six  weeks 
ago.  There  is  more  time  therefore  now 
to  use  that  davenport  before  paying 
our  final  respects  for  the  night  to  the 
clock  and  the  china  cat.  The  air  in 
fact  is  cool,  or  at  least  I  claim  it  is. 
You  see  I  seize  upon  any  sort  of  half- 
way plausible  excuse  to  work  that 
Cape  Cod  lighter.  I  forgot  to  say 
before  that  one  of  those  inventions  of 
[109] 


The  Black  Swans 


the  devil,  or  some  ingenious  Yankee, 
which  has  robbed  me  of  a  lot  of  harm- 
less satisfaction  is  a  part  of  the  general 
equipment.  I  have  always  known  that 
half  the  fun  of  building  a  fire  was  in 
tearing  up  the  old  "Tribunes"  and 
"Posts,"  and  fussing  with  pine  kindling 
or  some  shavings  in  getting  started 
right,  but  in  an  evil  hour  an  oil- 
burning  "lighter"  came  to  practically 
rob  me  of  those  privileges.  Now  we 
only  need  a  page  out  of  the  newspaper 
and  just  a  few  small  fagots,  and  the 
fire  is  blazing  there  before  you  have 
had  half  time  enough  to  get  ready  to 
enjoy  it.  I  can  thrash  the  man  who 
thought  of  kerosene  in  such  connection. 
It  is  an  insult  to  my  wood,  and  I  ob- 
ject. I  prefer  to  dicker  with  the  saw- 
mill for  good  slabs  to  haggling  with 
Rockefeller  over  his  petroleum.  But 
we  have  it,  and  rather  than  quarrel 
over  it  we  shall  use  it. 

Prodigal   as  we  have  been  in  this 
country  in  the  use  of  our  natural  re- 
[110] 


Tick-Tock  "  Talk 


sources,  great  as  has  undoubtedly  been 
the  lavish  waste  and  destruction  of  our 
native  forests,  there  is  still  no  occasion 
to  fear  complete  denudation  of  our 
wooded  areas  if  any  sort  of  reasonable 
conservation  be  practiced.  We  may 
therefore  continue  to  enjoy  our  open 
fires  complacently.  That  is  one  thing 
among  many  others  that  we  Americans 
have  to  be  thankful  for. 

I  have  been  in  at  least  two  countries 
where  it  almost  seemed  a  crime  to 
burn  wood  upon  a  hearth — Italy  and 
parts  of  Scotland.  The  fact  is  that  in 
Rome  or  Naples,  if  you  chance  to  be 
there  in  February  and  call  for  wood 
for  your  hotel  grate,  you  will  get  a 
handful  of  "punk"  that  responds  to 
your  most  urgent  coaxing  only  with 
that  languor  which  we  usually  associate 
in  our  minds  with  the  Mediterranean 
atmosphere,  climate  and  peoples.  In 
Aberdeenshire  the  patches  of  wood 
you  may  see  here  and  there  upon  the 
granite  hills  are  just  "plantations," 

[ml 


The  Black  Swans 


all  of  artificial  production.  Wood 
therefore  is  precious,  as  are  many 
other  things  in  the  North  Country — 
a  shilling  most  of  all.  In  the  Lothians 
or  the  Trossachs  and  on  Tweedside 
you  will  not  feel  that  sense  of  bleakness 
that  impressed  me  after  I  crossed 
for  the  first  time  the  great  bridge  at 
Dundee  en  route  to  Aberdeen  to  be  the 
guest  of  an  ever-hospitable  community. 
Up  there  on  the  western  shores  of  the 
North  Sea  (let  us  no  longer  say  the 
German  Ocean)  a  thrifty,  intelligent 
and  industrious  people  have  wrought 
more  out  of  little  than  I  have  seen 
produced  elsewhere  in  either  hemis- 
phere. Along  the  coast  the  deep-sea 
fishing  is  an  important  industry,  but 
it  is  in  the  shallow  depths  of  certain 
stony  soils  drained  by  the  storied 
Don,  say  at  Sittyton  or  Collynie,  that 
you  find  the  most  amazing  things 
accomplished.  If  you  care  to  know 
what  can  be  made  from  just  turnips 
(the  "neeps"  of  colloquial  Scotch) 
[112] 


Tick-Tock  "  Talk 


and  straw,  and  perhaps  a  handful  now 
and  then  of  linseed  cake,  go  into 
Aberdeenshire,  or  Angus  or  Forfar  and 
learn  of  the  simple  yet  effective  pro- 
cesses with  which  these  northern  wiz- 
ards work. 

I  know  that  I  once  lived  in  ancient 
Northumbria  and  afterwards  in  Scot- 
land, just  as  I  am  equally  sure  that  I 
passed  through  one  former  life  some- 
where along  the  flanks  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  Mountains.  I  never  visit  either 
that  I  am  not  possessed  by  a  sense  of 
attachment,  a  feeling  that  these  scenes 
are  most  familiar  and  most  intensely 
dear  to  me.  Sometimes  I  think  that 
I  belong  there  still.  I  imagine  that  I 
could  be  happy  anywhere  within  sight 
of  Durham  Cathedral  or  in  the  valley  of 
the  Tees  or  near  the  Grampians,  the 
Hills  of  Lammermoor,  or  on  either 
side  of  those  lofty,  rounded,  wooded 
heights  that  separate  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  from  the  Old  Dominion. 
"The  call  of  the  blood,"  I  suppose,  this 

[113] 


The  Black  Swans 


subconscious     knowledge     would     be 
termed. 

I  cannot  quite  make  out  the  par- 
ticular location  in  any  case.  That  is  a 
detail  which  in  the  course  of  genera- 
tions has  escaped  me,  but  there  are 
certain  places  in  that  pastoral  paradise 
called  Yorkshire  that  have  a  strangely 
familiar  aspect.  There  are  rich  fields 
and  meadows,  rare  old  trees  and  ivied 
walls  and  high-bred  flocks  and  herds 
and  well-groomed  hunters  racing  down 
the  country-side  to  the  matchless 
music  of  the  pack — just  as  in  those 
days  of  old.  I  can  swear  that  my 
ancestors  on  one  side  the  house  were 
among  the  ancient  Britons  who  dwelt 
in  Cleveland  Vale  or  perhaps  on  Der- 
went  Water,  and  were  a  part  of  the 
migration  of  those  who  were  pressed 
out  of  their  fair  possessions  perhaps  in 
Caesar's  time  far  to  the  North  beyond 
the  Firth  of  Forth,  taking  with  them 
that  tongue,  the  remnant  of  which — 
the  old  "broad  Scotch" — is  in  reality 

[114] 


Tick-Tock  "  Talk 


the  early  English  of  northeastern  Eng- 
land, afterwards  so  thoroughly  cor- 
rupted by  Roman  and  Norman-French 
influences.  I  will  take  oath  that  I 
passed  one  boyhood  on  the  Scottish 
Border.  It  must  have  been  somewhere 
between  Coldstream  and  Melrose, 
somewhere  between  Norham's  ruined 
tower  and  Dryburgh  Abbey's  crum- 
bling glories,  that  I  tarried  through 
many  a  year  in  some  delectable  past. 
Evidently  I  am  now  passing  through 
some  sort  of  transition  stage,  the  signif- 
icance of  which  I  cannot  wholly  fathom. 
I  know  I  was  not  intended  to  be 
harnessed  and  driven;  I  know  that  I 
resent  brick  walls,  office  desks,  patent 
leather  shoes,  frock  coats  and  derby 
hats.  And  yet  I  have  passed  a  good 
part  of  this  life  within  four  walls  of 
masonry,  and  am  obliged  to  wear  the 
clothes  prescribed  by  a  Michigan 
Boulevard  tailor.  I  hate  the  men's 
wear  of  this  period.  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  would  go  to  kilts.  In  fact,  I 

[115] 


The  Black  Swans 


know  I  should  not  in  this  climate. 
And  apropos  of  that,  and  of  the  right 
to  bear  arms  and  bare  legs,  I  once  had 
the  pleasure  and  the  honor  of  spending 
a  delightful  summer  day  with  the  late 
Sir  George  Macpherson  Grant  at  Bal- 
lindalloch  Castle  way  up  there  in 
Strathspey  where  the  heather  and  the 
Trojan  Ericas  were  blooming.  Prince 
Ito  was  there  also,  but  you  might  not 
find  him  quite  as  interesting  as  I  did. 
Still  he  was  a  bull  well  worth  knowing, 
whose  pedigree  may  be  found  in  that 
Scottish  bovine  Almanac  de  Gotha, 
the  Aberdeen-Angus  herd  book.  I  am 
sure  that  His  Lordship's  "hieland" 
dress  was  vastly  more  comfortable 
as  we  wandered  up  and  down  the 
fields  that  day  than  were  my  own  long 
regulation  "breeks."  Freedom  of 
movement!  Freedom  of  life!  Up  there 
in  the  northern  air  and  hills!  And  in- 
side the  gray  old  castle  walls  we 
climbed  the  steep  and  narrow  circling 
steps  by  which  the  ancient  tower  of 
[n6] 


"  Tick-Tock  "  Talk 


defense  has  been  so  many  centuries 
ascended;  he  in  garb  befitting  the 
environment,  the  history  and  traditions 
of  the  place.  Over  the  great  entrance 
outside  is  carved  the  coat  of  arms  with 
its  warning  motto:  "Touch  not  the 
cat  but  (with)  the  glove."  Now  im- 
agine Sir  George  or  any  one  else  stand- 
ing on  those  battlements  in  1918 
breeches  and  "bowler"  defying  mortal 
enemies  under  the  banner  of  the  Grants 
of  Ballindalloch! 

Of  course  we  can't  all  be  Highland 
lairds,  and  cling  even  yet  to  our 
ancient  blessings  and  privileges;  neither 
can  we  who  are  just  over — mind  you  I 
said  "just  over" — the  extended  draft 
age  don  khaki  and  seek  shoulder 
straps.  But  it  seems  to  me  we  might 
at  least  be  allowed  the  Greek  or  Ro- 
man flowing  civic  robes  with  sandles, 
or  the  long  loose  smock  of  the  English 
shepherd  or  Breton  peasant. 

I  think  I  must  be  a  more  or  less 
rebellious  subject  by  nature  and  in- 

[117] 


The  Black  Swans 


heritance.  The  Scotch  were  always  a 
stiff-necked  generation.  Neither  the 
English  kings — nor  their  own  some- 
times— suited  them;  and  the  Estab- 
lished Church  they  would  not  abide. 
And  as  for  my  English  forbears  in  the 
valleys  of  the  Potomac  and  Rappa- 
hannock,  they  could  not  long  endure 
the  yoke  of  colonial  governors.  Any- 
how they  followed  Daniel  Boone  into 
the  western  wild  over  the  Blue  Moun- 
tains through  dark  forests;  and  had  no 
sooner  got  comfortably  settled  in  the 
Ohio  Valley  when  something  else  went 
wrong.  The  trackless  prairies  called, 
and  in  a  rough-hewn  home  of  logs 
beyond  the  Mississippi  the  peace  and 
freedom,  dear  alike  to  all  created 
things,  was  found.  Maybe  it  is  stand- 
ing yet,  that  roof-tree  under  which  a 
boy  once  made  mud  pies  and  watched 
wild  pigeons  in  flocks  of  hundreds 
gather  for  the  night  in  the  timber  by 
a  little  stream.  Some  day  I  may  go 
and  see.  That  cabin  was  a  cow  barn 
fiiSI 


Tick-Tock  "  Talk 


the  last  I  heard  of  it — and  that  was 
long  ago — where  four-footed  folk  found 
shelter  from  the  storms;  where  yellow 
corn  and  sweet  clean  prairie  hay 
brought  solid  comfort  and  content, 
where  foaming  milk  pails  stood  out- 
side the  door  and  expectant  cats  looked 
on  and  waited  for  a  share. 

Speaking  of  wild  pigeons — once  num- 
bered by  countless  thousands,  but  now 
absolutely  extinct  on  this  continent  be- 
cause of  ruthless  slaughter  by  thought- 
less huntsmen — I  once  knew  a  boy  who 
thought  he  loved  to  shoot  and  kill  all 
sorts  of  birds,  but  who  lived  to  regret 
some  of  his  own  indefensible  acts  in  that 
line,  and  one  evening  not  so  very  long 
ago  he  sat  by  the  evening  fire,  and  there 
came  to  him  a  scene  from  other  days : 

Forefend  the  Thoughtless  Deed  or  Word 

A  May-time  of  the  long  ago; 
A  boy  and  dog  a-hunting  in  the  hills 
'Midst  flowery  fields  and  meadows  sweet. 
The  notes  of  happy  songbirds 

[119] 


The  Black  Swans 


Fill  the  vibrant  vernal  air 
And  from  a  woodland  deep 
A  mourning- dove  flies  forth. 

And  if  that  boy  shall  live  a  hundred  years, 
And  if  naught  else  of  early  youth   he   shall 

regret 
Whene'er    that   plaintive    spring-time    cooing 

call  he  hears 
That  day  in  May  of  long  ago  shall  haunt  him 

yet. 

A  dove  lies  fluttering,  dying  at  his  feet. 
Strange,  wondrous,  iridescent  colors  come  and 

go 
Upon    the    plumage    of    a    dainty,    drooping 

breast; 
Pink    changing    into    rose    and    purples    into 

violets! 

Then  all  is  still. 

And  when  it  answered  not  his  touch, 
Too  late  he  knew  he  cared  so  much;  so  much! 

And  thus  the  thoughtless  wanton  word 

Speeding  its  cruel  shaft 

Straight  to  its  mark  beyond  recall 

May  crush  a  love  that  only  winged  its  way  to 

bless 
And  throw  the  pall  of  darkness  over  all. 

[  120] 


"  Tick-Tock  "  Talk 


And  here  I  am  tonight  at  Dum- 
biedykes  musing  to  as  little  purpose 
probably  as  when  out  there  a  tired, 
barefooted,  sleepy  "kid"  once  mar- 
veled at  the  whistling  whippoorwills 
when  evening  came.  A  slowly  burning 
log  that  never  saw  those  scenes  has 
brought  them  back,  and  why  not? 
These  trees  from  which  our  stores  of 
wood  are  drawn  may  have  also  har- 
bored in  their  time  many  of  those 
self-same  birds.  It  is  now  some  years 
ago,  but  once  I  heard  far  back  in  the 
Clark  farm  woods  near  by  just  after 
dark  the  old  familiar  cry,  repeated 
long  and  loud  not  less  than  twenty 
times  in  quick  succession,  in  accor- 
dance with  traditional  whippoorwillian 
practices.  But  he  did  not  stay,  this 
courier  of  the  air  from  somewhere, 
sounding  his  message  across  the  space; 
the  one  and  only  call  of  its  kind  yet 
heard  at  Dumbiedykes. 


[121] 


THE  WOOD 


CHAPTER  IX 

An  August  Night 

THERE  may  have  been  bigger, 
brighter  moons  seen  somewhere, 
some  time,  than  the  one  which  rose 
beyond  Midlothian  Wood  the  night 
of  August  twenty-second,  but  I  doubt 
it.  The  curving  roadway  and  the 
winding  walk  that  led  down  to  the 
bridge  were  revealed  with  almost  mid- 
day clearness,  and  underneath  the 
oaks  along  the  fringes  of  the  open 
glades  elusive  lights  and  shadows 
played.  And  the  night  was  filled  with 
music. 

We  expect  little  of  that  during  the 

dog    days    from    the    feathered    folk. 

They  are  mostly  in  seclusion.    In  fact, 

the  average  songbird  of  this  latitude 

[123] 


The  Black  Swans 


during  these  late  August  days  is  a 
sorry  specimen.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  robins.  They  are  at  this 
period  a  sad  and  seedy  lot.  That 
cocksureness  of  themselves  so  much  in 
evidence  in  early  May  has  now  quite 
evaporated.  The  fact  is  the  birds  are 
moulting.  They  seem  to  know  that 
they  are  altogether  unpresentable  and 
shun  publicity  accordingly.  You  might 
not  think  there  is  so  much  pride  among 
them,  but  the  truth  seems  to  be  that 
when  in  this  moth-eaten  state  they 
seek  cover  just  as  naturally  as  some 
of  the  rest  of  us  would  under  similar 
conditions.  They  are  neither  courting 
mates  nor  public  notoriety,  and  we 
therefore  see  little  of  them,  and  hear 
less.  That  yellow-tinted  feather  lying 
on  the  grass  there  was  part  of  a  flicker's 
raiment  only  yesterday,  and  you  can 
pick  up  a  hatful  of  them  if  you  make  a 
business  of  it.  Certain  warblers  are 
already  here  en  route  for  Caribbean 
waters,  and  yesterday  a  big  blue  heron 

[124] 


An  August  Night 


came  along.  I  don't  know  what  he 
was  doing  here  nor  where  he  was  going. 
Am  not  sure  he  knew  himself.  We 
have  but  faint  trace  here  of  marsh  or 
reeds.  He  was  just  off  his  beat  a  bit,  as 
was  also  that  lone  Lake  Michigan  sea- 
gull that  shortly  afterwards  circled 
and  squawked  above  the  links.  The 
bed  of  the  natural  surface  drainage 
ditch,  called  by  courtesy  a  creek, 
would  be  dry  most  of  the  summer  but 
for  the  fact  that  the  club  long  since 
dammed  it  where  it  enters  the  wood, 
and  keeps  it  pumped  full  of  water 
from  a  deep  bored  well.  In  fact,  it  is 
damned  at  some  point  anew  every 
golfing  day  all  summer;  for  the  best 
balls  used  are  "sinkers,"  and  if  that 
gull  and  heron  were  as  fond  of  hard- 
coated  India  rubber  as  I  suppose  they 
are  of  fish  and  frogs,  they  might,  if 
they  but  knew,  feast  famously  at  al- 
most any  point  where  water  meets 
those  fascinating  fair-ways.  But  we 
were  speaking  of  Luna,  and  I  do  not 

[125] 


The  Black  Swans 


care  to  dwell  upon  the  subject  of  lost 
golf  balls  anyway.  Some  people  like 
to  joke  on  facts.  Very  well.  Let  them. 
I  prefer  to  forget  some  things. 

We  had  been  dining  at  the  clubhouse, 
this  night  of  the  cartwheel  moon,  with 
George.  Know  George?  He  is  a  Con- 
necticut Yankee  lad  of  uncertain  age, 
who  in  his  time  has  worked  hard, 
played  some,  helped  a  lot  of  people 
and  will  be  here  still,  I  hope  and 
fully  expect,  golfing,  gossiping,  dining, 
laughing,  and  making  one  or  two  new 
friends  each  day,  until  on  Judgment 
Morn  they  throw  him  down  and  force 
an  exchange  of  his  "knickers"  for  a 
robe  with  wings,  and  make  him  play 
with  harps,  not  mid-irons,  through 
Elysian  Fields. 

It  was  about  nine  o'clock  when  we 
started  for  the  cottage  through  the 
wood.  Some  say  madness  lurks  in 
moon-beams.  Not  being  an  alienist 
I  cannot  discuss  so  technical  a  psychic 
point.  I  will  assert,  however,  that  the 
[126] 


An  August  Night 


supernal  quality  of  the  lunar  flood  this 
August  night  might  almost  breed  dis- 
traction in  any  mind  that  has  an 
established  touch  with  the  Infinite. 
It  brings  one  so  very  close  to  the  un- 
fathomable. It  is  a  manifestation  of 
the  working  of  the  same  unerring 
Hand  that  flushed  with  rose-tints  all 
unthinkable  that  filmy  veil  of  vapor 
overhead  the  evening  of  the  last  new 
moon  just  after  the  sun  had  gone — a 
cloud,  such  as  had  not  been  set  before 
I  think  in  any  sky,  that  seemed  to 
turn,  as  Dumbiedykes  was  neared, 
into  fleecy  flaming  wreaths  of  fire. 

But  after  all  I  like  the  dark  nights 
best.  A  full  moon  is  such  a  rank 
monopolist.  It  dominates  all  heaven 
and  earth.  You  can  see  and  think  of 
little  else.  You  get  too  much  of  the 
world  and  not  enough  of  heaven.  The 
day-time  is  the  earth-time.  The  night- 
time is  the  sky-time.  I  know  that  the 
face  of  that  fair  lady  shining  so  bril- 
liantly up  there  from  out  the  lunar 

[127] 


The  Black  Swans 


landscape  is  radiantly  beautiful,  but 
give  me  the  moonless,  cloudless  night 
with  all  its  million  mysteries.  I  do 
not  want  Libra  put  out  of  business  even 
for  a  night,  because  that  is  the  zodi- 
acal sign  under  which  somebody  says 
I  was  born.  I  did  not  say  when. 
But  it  was  quite  long  enough  ago.  I 
am  no  astrologist,  but  I  have  sat  many 
times  in  that  big  solarium  at  the  South 
Shore  Club,  and  admired  that  ceiling 
decoration,  even  though  I  don't  know 
anything  about  the  zodiacal  signs.  I 
have  heard  it  said  that  Libra  people 
are  temperamental;  that  they  enjoy 
intensely  and  suffer  correspondingly; 
that  they  are  mercurial;  easily  carried 
up  to  most  ecstatic  heights  and  just 
as  easily  plunged  into  the  blackest 
gulfs.  That  they  are  gifted  (or  cursed 
maybe)  with  much  imagination.  That 
they  are  apt  to  be  idealists.  That  the 
X-ray  power  of  divining  beauty  hidden 
to  many  other  eyes  is  theirs.  That 
they  love  art  in  every  form,  whether 
[128] 


An  August  Night 


it  be  in  the  coloring  of  the  petal  of  a 
flower,  the  pictures  in  the  clouds  or 
mountains,  the  symphonies  of  the  sea 
or  forest.  They  are  apt  to  try  to  give 
expression  to  their  inmost  thoughts. 
Fond  of  Nature,  they  find  their  great- 
est joy  in  creating,  if  they  can,  some- 
thing that  did  not  exist  before.  They 
are  happiest  when  those  who  love  the 
same  things  that  they  love  are  sharing 
with  them  a  great  play  or  opera,  a 
wonderful  painting,  a  poem,  an  April 
shower,  a  field  of  waving  grain,  a 
garden  of  roses  or  an  open  fire. 

The  star-vault's  placid  beauty  all  is 
lost  when  the  moon-queen  rides,  and 
I  like  the  jeweled  Pleiades.  I  miss 
Antares,  too,  and  all  his  Scorpion 
crew.  And,  so  I  say  again,  I  like  dark 
nights;  even  the  starless  ones,  if  fields 
be  brown  and  the  roof-tree  shakes  big 
rain-drops  on  the  shingles  overhead. 

As  I  was  saying,  we  had  dined  with 
George,  and  when  we  started  down  the 
walk,  that  night  of  the  record  moon, 

[129] 


The  Black  Swans 


the  woods  were  ringing  far  and  near 
with  the  endless  eerie  trilling  of  the 
August  "choir  invisible" — the  so- 
called  snowy  crickets  of  the  trees.  I 
wish  that  some  one  could  or  would 
coin  a  word  or  phrase  that  would 
convey  to  the  minds  of  those  who  may 
not  be  familiar  with  the  sound  some 
adequate  conception  of  the  quality 
and  character  of  this  strange  insect's 
all-night  song.  Hawthorne  calls  it 
"audible  moonlight."  A  clever  fancy 
that — only  the  busy  band  plays  on 
just  the  same  each  August  night,  moon 
or  no  moon.  Thoreau  has  spoken  of 
it  as  "slumbrous  breathing."  Scudder 
has  located  the  note  on  the  musical 
scale  as  the  fourth  F  above  the  middle 
C.  They  have  a  day  song  too  that 
differs  somewhat  from  that  so  per- 
sistently iterated  at  night;  but  that  is 
not  so  commonly  heard. 

The  "Kates"  of  course  grind  out 
their  own  peculiar  rasping  call  as  the 
cricket  chorus  swells  from  every  bosky 

[130] 


An  August  Night 


bower,  but  the  "  dids  "  and  the  "didn'ts" 
seem  to  tire  of  their  dispute  along 
towards  two  in  the  morning.  I  sup- 
pose they  get  hot  boxes  by  that 
time,  and  have  to  stop  until  through 
the  subtle  processes  of  nature  enough 
synovial  fluid  is  evolved  to  enable 
them  to  resume  the  friction  on  the 
ensuing  evening.  Not  so  with  the 
trillers  in  the  trees,  for  when  at  four 
I  woke  and  the  moon  was  turning  pale 
in  the  western  mists  the  air  was 
vibrant  still  with  cricketarian  piping, 
just  as  when  I  fell  asleep.  The  male 
does  the  work,  and  apparently  just 
winds  up  some  internal  spring  and 
goes  about  his  nightly  business,  what- 
ever that  may  be,  and  the  little  wings 
keep  going  until  broad  daylight,  grind- 
ing out  sometimes,  they  say,  as  high  as 
one  hundred  notes  per  minute. 

At  four-thirty — sun-time,  not  con- 
gressional— they  still  had  the  air  all  to 
themselves.  A  stiff  morning  breeze 
presently  began  to  blow,  and  set  the 

[131] 


The  Black  Swans 


oak  leaves  dancing,  but  that  made  no 
difference.  The  shrill  cadence  still 
rose  and  fell.  And  presently  a  low  and 
regularly  measured  note  emanating 
from  some  other  source  was  audible. 
At  first  I  could  not  just  make  it  out, 
but  it  was  soon  brought  up  with  a 
sudden  little  jerk,  and  then  I  knew  at 
once  that  it  was  neither  entomological 
nor  yet  ornithological  in  its  origin. 
It  was  only  Billy  over  there  in  her 
nest  in  the  corner  of  the  room  softly 
purring.  Luna  is  fading  fast  by  this 
time,  for  the  gray  dawn  is  breaking. 
The  crows  are  cawing,  and  at  four- 
forty  Ben  Roberts'  young  White  Leg- 
horn rooster  takes  a  hand.  He  only 
learned  to  crow  last  week,  and  doesn't 
"follow  through"  exactly  yet,  but  he 
has  found  out  that  he  is  a  sure-enough 
rooster  now,  and  wants  all  the  world  to 
know  it. 

At  last  there  is  obviously  a  tired 
feeling  creeping  o'er  the  cricket  col- 
onies. There  is  evident  lack  of  interest, 

[132] 


An  August  Night 


or  power,  after  fifty-four  thousand 
separate  notes  have  been  produced. 
Some  have  evidently  gone  to  sleep  or 
to  breakfast,  no  matter  which.  A 
few  still  "carry  on."  Then  there  is  a 
lapse.  A  few  of  them  come  wearily 
back  a  little  later.  Then  all  subside 
and  switch  to  the  day-time  schedule. 

At  five  o'clock  the  usual  perform- 
ance at  this  season  of  the  year  upon 
and  underneath  the  awnings  at  the 
bedroom  windows,  is  put  on.  You 
would  say  that  a  turkey  or  at  least  a 
big  Buff  Cochin  hen  had  somehow 
landed  on  the  cloth  outside  and  slid 
with  desperate  clawing  down  the  steep 
incline.  The  struggle  for  a  footing  is 
quite  strenuous,  but  soon  over,  for  the 
law  of  gravitation  is  still  operative, 
and  an  awning  hanging  at  an  angle  of 
forty-five  degrees  is  built  for  skidding 
or  tobogganing,  not  for  quiet  comfort 
so  far  as  the  bird  creation  is  concerned. 
But  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
this  vain  flapping  and  scratching  is 


The  Black  Swans 


loud  enough  to  be  attributed  to  a 
much  larger  creature  than  a  yellow- 
hammer,  you  will  presently  see  that 
it  is  our  old  friend  some  call  the 
"flicker"  that  is  going  through  this 
morning  exercise.  But  he  is  not  doing 
it  just  to  keep  his  muscular  house  in 
order.  Neither  is  he  doing  it  for  the 
mere  fun  of  the  thing.  He  doesn't 
know  the  first  principles  of  the  sport 
of  sliding  with  Briggs  and  "Skinnay" 
down  a  cellar  door.  He  only  knows 
that  on  these  cool  nights  Mr.  House- 
fly and  a  fat  and  juicy  assemblage  of 
his  sisters,  cousins  and  aunts  collect 
around  the  awnings,  or  on  the  wire 
screening  just  beneath,  as  affording  a 
comfortable  lodging  place;  and  the 
bird  is  hungry,  awkward  and  per- 
sistent. You  would  think  that  he 
would  scare  away  at  once  by  his  first 
"descensus  Averno"  all  reasonably  pru- 
dent flies,  but  it  is  not  so.  The  latter 
are  not  yet  thawed  out  of  their  noc- 
turnal numbness,  and  are  easy  marks. 

[i34l 


An  August  Night 


And  so  the  awning  slides  are  repeated 
perhaps  a  half-a-dozen  times,  and 
may  be  two  or  three  other  foragers 
will  join  in  the  hunt  for  f rapped  flies. 
And  now  the  birds  have  found  that 
when  the  top  of  the  awning  has  been 
cleared  they  can  come  in  underneath 
and  work  the  screens.  The  French 
windows  are  thrown  back  inside  the 
room,  so  the  sport  is  now  clearly  to  be 
seen.  This  morning  after  the  night 
of  the  great  full  moon,  with  a  reference 
to  which  this  discursive  narrative  be- 
gan, two  of  the  birds  alighted  squarely 
on  the  perpendicular  surface  of  the 
wire  netting,  gripping  the  mesh  with 
their  needle-pointed  claws,  and  stood 
there  side  by  side  peering  curiously 
and  cautiously  inside.  To  me  they 
are  silly-looking  and  queer-acting 
creatures  at  best,  and  their  clinging 
to  and  climbing  up  a  window  screen 
is  about  as  clumsy  and  ridiculous  a 
stunt  as  I  have  seen  in  bird-land. 
There,  side  by  side,  the  long-billed 


The  Black  Swans 


pair,  glued  to  the  wire,  a  very  picture 
of  discomfort,  with  piercing  eyes,  sur- 
vey the  room's  interior,  plainly  trying 
to  figure  out  what  sort  of  creatures 
live  inside  of  such  a  cage.  There  let 
us  leave  them. 

All  of  which  is  fact,  and  not  an  out- 
growth of  George's  dinner,  and  if  you 
don't  believe  it  ask  Billy,  for  she  will 
also  tell  you  true;  she  saw  them  too. 


LILACS  AND  IVY 


CHAPTER  X 

Socks  and  Flocks 

THE  "Knit  Club"  met  here  today. 
I  do  not  wonder  that  there  is  a 
world  shortage  of  wool.  I  have  seen 
acres  of  automatic  looms  weaving 
cloths  and  fabrics  by  the  mile  in  times 
of  peace  in  great  New  England  mills. 
In  normal  periods  they  are  heavy 
buyers  in  Melbourne,  Sydney  and 
London  of  the  fine  Merino  and  Cross- 
bred wools  of  the  southern  hemisphere. 
Our  top-makers  and  yarn  spinners 
have  been  able  to  fill  but  a  small 
percentage  of  their  requirements  from 
the  domestic  clip.  And  with  the 
enormous  war  demands  for  woolen 
goods  added  to  the  civilian  consump- 
tion, it  is  easy  to  understand  why  our 

[i37] 


The  Black  Swans 


old  friend  George  Scott — who  in  ante- 
bellum days  played  alleged  golf  at 
the  Midlothian  Club — as  acting  gen- 
eral manager  for  the  American  Red 
Cross  at  one  dollar  per  annum,  has 
issued  a  statement  from  his  Washing- 
ton office  advising  that  the  yarn  supply 
for  the  busy  knitters  can  scarcely  be 
maintained  this  winter  at  its  past 
maximum.  Just  how  many  hanks 
have  been  wound  off  long-suffering 
hubby's  hands  into  balls  for  sock-and- 
sweater-making  since  the  first  call 
was  made  cannot  here  be  stated.  I 
know  that  it  took,  in  many  cases,  a 
hard-working  sheep  somewhere  a  whole 
year  to  grow  eight  pounds  in  the  grease, 
and  that  in  the  scouring  this  dwindled 
down  to  maybe  two  and  a  half  or  three 
pounds  of  clean  fiber,  and  I  know 
that  if  the  countless  flocks  needed  to 
produce  these  great  stores  of  soft, 
warm  yarns  were  grazing  today  in  our 
own  country  instead  of  in  the  Anti- 
podes our  people  would  be  better 

[138] 


Socks  and  Flocks 


dressed  and  more  comfortable  and  our 
lands  vastly  richer  for  the  touch  of 
these  million  golden  hoofs  upon  our 
soil. 

One  of  the  knitters  wants  to  know 
why  then  this  wool  has  to  be  imported. 
"Why  don't  our  own  farmers  grow 
it?"  Why  be  dependent  upon  Aus- 
tralian "stations"  and  Argentine 
estancias?  The  answer  in  simple  lan- 
guage is  that  as  an  economic  proposi- 
tion America  cannot  compete  suc- 
cessfully in  the  maintenance  of  the 
particular  type  of  sheep  that  bears  the 
special  grade  of  wool  required  in  such 
volume  in  the  manufacture  of  the 
finer  fabrics.  The  sheep  that  grows 
this  dense  fine  fleece  can  and  does  live 
upon  the  scantiest  of  herbage  on  great 
stretches  of  wild  and  sterile  or  even 
desert  lands  that  have  little  value  for 
general  agricultural  purposes.  The 
sheep  that  is  bred  in  England — land  of 
delicious  chops — and  mainly  in  the 
United  States  is  of  a  heavier,  fleshier 


The  Black  Swans 


sort,  grown  primarily  for  his  meat, 
the  wool  being  a  by-product  only,  and 
as  a  rule  a  longer  and  coarser  staple 
than  the  Merinos  of  Australasia.  Not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  the  long 
and  so-called  middle-wools  find  a  good 
market  in  the  woolen  trade,  and  not- 
withstanding the  high  prices  of  lamb 
and  mutton  produced  by  these  dual- 
purpose  British  and  American  sheep, 
still  our  farmers  do  not  now,  and  for 
a  long  time  to  come  probably  will  not 
as  a  rule,  engage  in  their  production. 
Why? 

A  knit  club  can  ask  more  questions 
in  a  minute  than  can  be  answered  in  a 
day.  There  are  several  reasons  given 
by  our  farmers  in  reply  to  such  queries. 
For  one,  the  curse  of  cur  dogs.  Any 
worthless  canine  vagabond,  of  which 
there  are  tens  of  thousands  in  the  rural 
districts,  can  and  may  slit  the  throats 
and  worry  to  their  death  in  one  night 
what  it  has  taken  some  hard-working 
farmer-shepherd  months  or  years  to 

[  14°] 


Socks  and  Flocks 


produce.  State  laws  are  being  passed 
as  fast  as  public  sentiment  will  sustain 
them,  designed  to  abate  this  ever- 
present  threat  to  successful  flock-keep- 
ing. But  there  are  so  many  fool  people 
who  are  wedded  to  their  curs  that  it  is 
difficult  to  get  effective  legislation. 
Fine,  well-bred  Collies,  the  old  English 
sheep  dogs,  and  their  cousins  of  France 
are  aids  rather  than  enemies  in  sheep- 
raising,  but  in  this  country,  and  par- 
ticularly in  the  middle  West  and  South, 
these  useful  varieties  are  as  yet  in  a 
woeful  minority. 

Again,  flock  husbandry  in  the  case 
of  the  mutton  breeds  is  not  the  simple 
pursuit  it  may  seem  to  the  uninitiated. 
Such  beautiful  animals  as  the  South- 
downs,  Shropshires,  Oxfords,  Hamp- 
shires,  Cheviots,  Dorsets,  Lincolns, 
Cotswolds,  Leicesters  and  kindred 
sorts  are  highly  artificial  products. 
Neglected,  they  will  therefore  deteri- 
orate rapidly.  They  demand  constant 
care,  thought  and  protection.  No 

[141] 


The  Black  Swans 


animal  is  more  helpless.  None  needs 
closer  human  attention.  And  so  it 
happens  that  many  American  farmers, 
especially  those  unskilled  in  the  shep- 
herd's art,  often  meet  with  loss  and 
disappointment.  "I  have  no  luck 
with  sheep"  is  a  common  expression; 
meaning,  as  a  rule,  that  lack  of  good 
fortune  commonly  signifies  lack  of 
foresight,  lack  of  knowledge,  lack  of 
devotion  to  the  real  needs  of  the  flock. 
A  pig  can  be  turned  out  to  rustle  for 
himself.  "Root,  hog,  or  die"  is  the 
phrase  that  reflects  that  proposition. 
And  usually  Mr.  Porker,,  whether  of 
high  or  low  degree,  whether  razor- 
back,  Duroc,  Poland,  Chester, 
"Hamp"  or  Berkshire,  will  root  his 
own  way  successfully,  if  necessity  com- 
pels. Not  so  the  daintier  fabricators 
of  the  snowy  fleece.  The  delicious 
roast  brown  "leg"  that  you  had  at 
dinner  last  night  or  the  tender  chop 
with  the  light  bone  you  enjoyed  this 
morning  did  not  come  from  a  raga- 

[142] 


Socks  and  Flocks 


muffin  flock.  Toothsome  "crowns" 
or  "racks"  and  rich,  thick,  easy- 
cutting  saddles  or  loins  of  mutton  do 
not  grow  on  goats  or  starving  sheep. 

Good  mother's  milk  must  flow  in 
plenty  before  the  epicure  may  call 
for  "baby  lamb."  Look  at  a  Dorset 
matron's  generous  stores,  or  contem- 
plate the  broad  acres  of  good  green 
rape  or  cabbages  or  roots  and  the 
bags  of  cake,  and  even  "sweets,"  used 
in  the  ration  where  prime  product  is 
in  the  making,  and  you  will  realize 
the  labor  and  expense  that  lies  behind 
the  butcher's  block  and  complain  no 
more  of  cost. 

I  don't  suppose  any  of  you  knitters 
have  been  so  wildly  excited  over  this 
prosy  talk  that  you  have  dropped  any 
stitches.  You  have  knit  one,  slipped 
one,  purled  and  narrowed  on  in  the 
same  good  old  way,  and  how  the  socks 
have  grown! 

Did  you  ever  eat  good  mutton  off 
the  steaming  copper-covered  cart  at 

[i43l 


The  Black  Swans 


Simpson's  in  the  Strand?  Did  you 
ever  feast  on  a  real  " finished"  leg  in 
a  Scottish  border  home — say  like  John 
Clay  once  kept  near  Kelso?  Did  any 
of  you  sit  at  our  own  table  that  time 
friend  Ogilvie  sent  us  a  loin  and  leg 
from  one  of  a  lot  of  wonderful  lambs 
produced  at  the  Wisconsin  Agricultural 
College  farm  at  Madison?  No?  Well, 
Mary  knows  how  to  brown  a  fancy 
cut  of  lamb  to  a  nicety;  and  if  the 
American  people  at  large  could  once 
have  a  chance  at  lamb  and  mutton 
such  as  the  English  are  familiar  with, 
we  too  would  soon  become  a  lamb-and- 
mutton  eating  nation,  which  now  we 
are  not — mainly  because  we  have  not 
had  a  chance  at  the  real  thing. 

While  on  this  subject,  and  while  you, 
dear  knitters,  are  proceeding  with  your 
work  of  mercy,  and  apropos  of  lambs,  I 
once  interviewed  the  Italian  Minister 
of  Agriculture  in  Rome  on  the  general 
subject  of  flock-keeping  in  the  land  of 
the  olive,  the  ilex  and  the  vine,  I  had 


Socks  and  Flocks 


a  guide  or  courier  while  visiting  in 
that  country,  and  used  him  as  an 
interpreter  in  the  interview  of  which  I 
speak.  I  had  noticed  occasional  flocks 
out  on  the  Campagna  and  over  towards 
the  Alban  Hills,  and  thought  to  learn 
something  of  methods  there  in  vogue. 
Among  other  queries  propounded  to 
the  minister  I  asked  as  to  how  the 
surplus  of  the  flocks,  the  annual  in- 
crease, was  disposed  of.  A  reply  was 
quickly  given  in  Italian,  but  Raphael 
was  obviously  embarrassed  and  at  a 
loss  to  know  how  to  translate.  His 
English  was  all  right  for  ordinary 
tourist  purposes.  In  art  galleries  or 
amidst  the  ruins  of  the  Forum  or 
Pompeii  he  was  quite  at  home.  But  a 
little  matter  of  distinguishing  between 
the  ovine  male  and  female  brought 
about  in  this  case  a  somewhat  amusing 
denoument.  He  grinned  and  stam- 
mered as  he  turned  to  give  me  the 
reply;  finally  blurting  out  laughingly, 
knowing  that  he  was  "in  bad"  from 

[i4Sl 


The  Black  Swans 


an  English  standpoint:  "The  Meeni- 
stair  he  say — he  .  say — he  say — they 
sell  the  boys  and  keep  the  girls." 

A  knitter  says  something  about 
blankets — cotton  ones-^-and  this  re- 
calls a  well-guarded  remark  once  made 
on  a  Southern  Railway  Pullman  by  a 
certain  New  York  City  girl  in  reply  to 
a  query  put  by  her  companion.  It 
was  their  first  trip  to  Dixieland,  and 
many  of  the  sights  and  scenes  pos- 
sessed for  the  young  ladies  all  the 
elements  of  genuine  novelty.  Passing 
a  field  in  which  long  rows  of  little 
brown  bushes  bore  small  white  balls 
just  ready  for  the  pickers,  one  asked 
the  other,  "What  is  that  growing 
there?"  And  after  a  moment's  study 
came  the  safety-first  reply:  "It  is 
either  wool  or  cotton,  I  am  not  just 
sure  which."  And  the  answer  seemed 
to  satisfy;  and  some  very  intelligent 
people  have  trouble  of  the  same  sort  in 
our  drygoods  stores  when  examining 
certain  modern  fabrics. 

[146] 


Socks  and  Flocks 


Billy  is  "pig  knitting"  at  the  mo- 
ment. That  is  what  the  other  "girls" 
call  it.  She  has  knit  herself  to  a 
frazzle  on  socks.  They  were  fearful 
and  wonderful  at  first.  In  fact,  the 
original  pair  came  out  so  huge  they 
were  hung  on  the  mantle-piece  last 
Christmas,  and  when  Santa  came  down 
the  chimney  that  night  he  fled  dis- 
mayed. At  least  he  left  nothing  in 
them.  There  was  not  enough  in  his 
pack  to  make  a  show.  Later  on,  how- 
ever, she  had  better  luck,  and  I  am 
ready  to  maintain  that  few  fancier  or 
better  knitted  socks  are  now  finding 
their  way  to  France  than  those  from 
Billy's  busy  needles.  But  she  is  now 
making  me  a  sweater,  and  when  you 
make  things  for  any  one  these  days 
not  in,  over  or  behind  the  trenches  you 
are  classed  with  the  Chester  Whites,  as 
a  very  selfish  individual. 

There  is  not  nearly  so  much  "pig 
knitting"  going  on  these  days  in  any 
line  of  human  activity  in  this  country 

[i47l 


The  Black  Swans 


as  could  be  seen  on  every  hand  a  few 
years  since.  We  are  living  a  little  more 
now  for  others,  and  not  quite  so  much 
for  our  own  selves.  I  know  a  marsh 
not  far  away  were  snow-white  lilies 
have  found  their  way  to  the  surface 
from  forbidding  murky  depths.  There 
is  good  of  some  kind,  it  is  said,  in 
everything,  even  war;"  only  sometimes, 
try  as  we  may,  we  have  real  trouble 
finding  it. 


CHAPTER  XI 

The  Pig  in  a  Poke 

BLUE  ISLAND!  Sounds  inviting, 
doesn't  it?  Makes  you  think  of 
some  sequestered  spot  were  limpid 
waters  lap  a  pebbly  shore  and  ferns 
and  wild  flowers  blow.  Don't  let  your 
imagination  play  you  any  such  tricks, 
however,  in  this  case.  Blue  Island  is 
our  nearest  post  and  market  town,  and 
has  no  grottoes — that  I  know  about. 
I  don't  think  that  even  the  oldest 
inhabitant  could  tell  you  whence,  or 
how,  or  why  the  town  came  by  its 
name.  A  young  lady  living  in  a  distant 
state  with  whom  we  had  correspon- 
dence, but  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
town's  location  or  surroundings,  was 
invited  once  upon  a  time  to  visit 

[149] 


The  Black  Swans 


Dumbiedykes.  She  had  addressed  her 
letters  as  usual  "  Care  of  the  Midlothian 
Country  Club,  Blue  Island,  111."  Now 
she  knew  that  there  was  a  big  lake 
near  Chicago,  and  doubtless  had  visions 
of  being  met  by  a  motor  boat  or  yacht 
or  being  taken  aboard  a  steamer  ply- 
ing between  the  city  and  her  destina- 
tion. Imagine  her  surprise,  therefore, 
to  find  that  we  were  not  on  an  island 
in  Lake  Michigan  at  all,  and  that 
Blue  Island  was  neither  blue  nor  sur- 
rounded by  water.  Aside  from  those 
two  facts  she  found  no  fault  with  the 
choice  of  name.  And  speaking  of  that 
I  am  reminded  of  the  case  of  Atlas. 

Down  in  Pike  County,  Illinois,  in 
the  hills  flanking  the  great  wide  Mis- 
sissippi River  bottoms  there  are,  or 
were  some  years  ago,  the  remnants 
of  a  hamlet  that  rejoiced  in  the  earth- 
supporting  name  of  Atlas.  It  consisted 
mainly  at  the  time  I  first  passed 
through  it  of  a  tumble-down  black- 
smith shop  with  the  inevitable  flotsam 

[150] 


The  Pig  in  a  Poke 


and  jetsam  always  cast  up  around 
such  places  by  a  farming  community. 
Ramshackle  buggies,  old  wagon  wheels 
and  parts  of  plows  or  harvesters  rusting 
in  the  weeds;  just  a  "shack"  or  two — 
all  that  was  left  to  tell  the  tale  of 
anticipated  greatness  unfulfilled.  It 
seems  that  Atlas  is,  or  was,  one  of  the 
oldest  towns  in  central  western  Illinois, 
and  its  story  is  so  similar  to  that  of  a 
thousand  others  in  the  Middle  West 
that  a  little  anecdote  of  its  founding 
will  perhaps  appeal  to  those  who  may 
know  of  like  instances  of  buried  hopes. 
I  know  that  the  town  in  Iowa  near 
which  I  happened  to  be  born  shared 
the  same  fate  as  Atlas.  Indeed  its 
name  was  long  since  dropped  out  of 
the  official  Postoffice  Directory.  But 
we  speak  now  of  Atlas.  Its  location 
had  been  decided  upon  by  the  pioneer 
land  investors  of  the  early  days  when 
emigration  was  streaming  over  the 
flowery  prairies  of  Illinois,  with  the 
Mississippi  or  beyond  as  the  objec- 

[151] 


The  Black  Swans 


tive.  The  site  selected  for  "the  future 
great"  commanded  a  wide  view  of 
magnificent  sweeps  of  black  alluvial 
soil,  and  on  the  uplands  the  bluegrass 
that  promised  rich  for  pastoral  hus- 
bandry ran  riot  in  the  hills.  It  looked 
good.  It  was  good.  There  were  no 
settlements  with  any  particularly 
promising  prospects  for  leagues  and 
leagues  in  any  direction.  A  name  to  fit 
its  manifest  destiny  was  chosen,  sur- 
veys were  made,  the  first  buildings 
erected  and  in  fancy  its  fond  founders 
saw  in  its  embryonic  state  the  coming 
metropolis  of  an  empire  rich  beyond  all 
dreams.  The  empire  arrived  in  due 
course  all  right,  but  not  so  the  hopes  of 
Atlas. 

One  day  word  came  to  the  village 
fathers  that  some  hare-brained  set- 
tlers a  little  farther  up  the  river  had 
staked  out  another  town,  and  it  was 
to  be  known  as  Quincy.  While  this 
created  no  particular  flutter  in  the 
expectant  streets  of  Atlas,  a  meeting 

[152] 


The  Pig  in  a  Poke 


of  the  bewhiskered  candidates  for  fu- 
ture aldermanic  honors  was  neverthe- 
less held  that  night  in  the  corner  gro- 
cery to  discuss  the  matter;  and  over 
the  "navy  plug"  the  relative  prospects 
of  the  two  communities  came  up  for 
argument  and  adjudication.  Those 
few  faint-hearted  ones  who  manifested 
any  doubt  as  to  the  assured  supremacy 
of  Atlas  were  soon  silenced,  and  before 
the  court  had  adjourned  it  had  been 
unanimously  determined,  once  for  all, 
that  "Quincy  never  could  amount  to 
a  damn  anyhow,  because  it  was  too 
near  Atlas!"  Alas,  poor  Atlas!  you 
know  what  happened  to  her;  or  rather 
you  know  what  happened  at  Quincy, 
where  one  of  the  West's  leading  rail- 
way systems  built  a  great  steel  bridge 
and  shops  and  made  a  thriving  city, 
while  Atlas  withered  and  decayed  until 
finally  one  day  a  strong  wind  blew 
it  off  the  map.  One  of  a  thousand 
similar  victims  of  pioneer  railway  en- 
gineering. 


The  Black  Swans 


But  we  are  forgetting  Blue  Island 
in  our  contemplation  of  Pike  County's 
tragedy.  An  island  used  to  be  defined 
in  my  old  school  geography  as  a  body 
of  land  entirely  surrounded  by  water. 
The  only  water  in  or  about  Blue  Island 
is  that  which  flows  through  big  iron 
mains  beneath  the  pavements,  and 
along  the  bed  of  a  creek  called  the 
Little  Calumet,  soon  to  be  utilized  as 
a  part  of  a  big  drainage  ditch.  While 
near  the  great  city  it  is  not  the  con- 
ventional suburb  at  all.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  has  a  past  of  its  own;  an 
existence  and  individuality  of  its  own 
and  certain  institutions  of  its  own  to 
which  its  inhabitants  and  those  of  the 
country  tributary  to  it  cling  with  the 
traditional  tenacity  and  conservatism 
of  people  of  their  race — old  country- 
men mainly  of  German  peasant  deriva- 
tion. For  instance,  at  stated  intervals, 
by  and  with  the  consent  and  co-opera- 
tion of  the  town  authorities,  a  genuine 
old  country  street  fair  is  held,  upon 


The  Pig  in  a  Poke 


which  occasion  the  south  end  of  the 
main  thoroughfare  presents  a  scene 
with  which  few  of  the  present  gen- 
eration of  Americans  have  any  famil- 
iarity. 

"Fair"  day  is  a  real  gala  day  in  this 
community.  From  early  morn  till 
dewy  eve  the  trafficking  and  gossiping 
and  beer-getrinking  goes  on,  and  in  the 
meantime  a  considerable  business — 
made  up  largely  of  the  buying  and 
selling  of  everything  you  can  imagine 
in  the  line  of  farm  products  from 
goose  eggs  to  spavined,  string-halt 
horses — is  transacted.  Itinerant  ven- 
dors of  peanuts,  "pop"  and  pink 
lemonade  establish  themselves  just 
around  the  corner  at  the  crossings 
nearest  the  heart  of  the  day's  doings. 
The  farm  folk  straggle  into  town,  some 
of  them  the  night  before,  and  all  the 
rest  at  early  dawn,  and  you  know  when 
you  see  the  live  stock  put  in  offer  that 
you  are  not  dealing  with  readers  or 
students  of  The  Breeder's  Gazette. 

[i55] 


The  Black  Swans 


Horse  trading  is  the  big  feature  of 
the  fair.  Somewhere,  some  place — per- 
haps behind  the  Kaiser's  front  lines — 
it  might  be  possible  to  collect  a  more 
picturesque  lot  of  lame,  blind,  crippled, 
swollen-legged  crow-baits  than  are  as- 
sembled from  heaven  knows  where  on 
these  Blue  Island  market  days.  I 
fancy  they  do  not  all  come  from  the 
farms  of  Bremen  township.  In  fact,  it 
is  not  impossible  that  the  Hebrew 
dealers  and  the  peddlers  and  the 
"junkers"  generally  in  the  city  send 
out,  perhaps  under  cover  of  darkness, 
some  of  their  own  most  striking  speci- 
mens in  the  hope  of  unloading  on 
somebody  at  a  profit.  Gypsies,  too, 
sometimes  have  a  hand  in  this  raffle 
of  equine  derelicts.  So  it  is  a  case  of 
diamond  cut  diamond,  a  lottery  in 
which  the  participants  apparently  en- 
joy taking  all  the  chances  that  attach 
to  swapping  and  trading  in  such  trash. 

While  the  men-folk  are  wrangling 
among  themselves  over  the  twenty- 

[156] 


The  Pig  in  a  Poke 


five  dollar  horses,  the  women  have 
not  been  idle.  In  the  old  days  they 
appeared  in  wooden  shoes.  They  prac- 
tically monopolize  the  trading  in  cows, 
sheep,  pigs,  geese,  ducks  and  chickens. 
These  are  not  usually  in  large  sup- 
ply. In  the  case  of  cows,  sheep  and 
pigs,  single  specimens  commonly  form 
the  subject  of  the  bartering.  Sheep 
are  seen  but  seldom.  There  are  too 
many  cur  dogs  in  the  community  to 
make  it  safe  or  profitable  for  any 
one  except  a  butcher  to  buy  one. 
The  class  of  milch  cows  offered  would 
not  appeal  specially  to  experienced 
dairymen.  They  are  of  all  grades  and 
crosses  from  just  plain  knot-heads  to 
an  occasional  poor  relation  of  the 
Hereford. 

I  have  often  heard  the  expression 
"buying  a  pig  in  a  poke,"  but  I  never 
understood  it  exactly  until  the  other 
morning  when  driving  through  the 
fair  I  saw  an  animated  gunny-sack 
rooting  its  uncertain  way  on  the  side- 

[157] 


The  Black  Swans 


walk  near  the  curb.  The  pig  was  not 
able  naturally  to  make  much  headway 
in  any  particular  direction.  That  of 
course  was  the  object  of  this  particular 
form  of  captivity,  and  presently  the 
old  lady  that  had  the  deal  in  hand 
effected  a  sale,  after  first  giving  the 
prospective  buyer — another  thrifty- 
looking  hausfrau— a  peek  inside  the 
bag.  Passengers  on  the  suburban  trains 
making  the  Blue  Island  stop  are  often 
surprised  as  the  cars  speed  cityward  to 
hear  the  squealing  of  little  pigs  or  the 
quacking  of  ducks  emanating  from 
somewhere  within  the  recesses  of  bas- 
kets belonging  to  undisturbed  females 
who  have  attended  the  fair.  And  if 
you  chance  to  be  driving  out  Western 
Avenue  from  Chicago  at  sundown  you 
will  see  a  long  string  of  battered, 
bandaged  horses  straggling  painfully 
onward  to  their  respective  destinies, 
and  in  and  around  Blue  Island  the 
cows  with  doubtful  udders  are  being 
led  to  village  pasture  lots 

[158] 


The  Pig  in  a  Poke 


The  fair  is  over.  Blue  Island  bars 
are  somewhat  richer  for  its  coming, 
and  a  lot  of  people  have  got  rid  of 
things  they  did  not  want  or  need,  and 
others  are  in  possession  of  that  which 
they  thought  they  wanted  or  needed 
or  could  turn  over  at  a  profit,  and  no 
middlemen  have  come  between.  Such 
is  the  only  rival  the  Union  Stock 
Yards  or  South  Water  Street  has  in 
Cook  County  so  far  as  I  have  seen. 
I  wonder  when  Mr.  McAdoo  may  wish 
to  take  it  over. 

A  bit  of  the  old  world  transplanted 
to  the  new,  a  bit  of  the  past  engrafted 
on  the  present,  this  quaint  recrudes- 
cence of  ancient  commerce  on  the 
Little  Calumet.  Probably  it  will  dis- 
appear shortly.  Soon  also  will  the 
little  stream  near  by  find  its  accus- 
tomed course  reversed,  and  Lake 
Michigan's  waters  pouring  westward 
through  its  bed  between  great  walls  of 
stone. 


CHAPTER  XII 

A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 

WHILE  on  the  subject  of  fairs 
I  am  wondering  if,  after  all,  the 
great  exhibitions  now  annually  staged 
by  the  leading  farming  states,  repre- 
senting large  investments  for  the  proper 
equipment  of  an  up-to-date  agricultural 
exposition,  have  so  very  much  on  the 
old  state  fairs  I  used  to  know.  Of 
course  they  have.  To  deny  that  would 
be  to  assert  that  we  may  not  be  mak- 
ing progress,  and  far  be  it  from  me  to 
advance  any  such  heretical  suggestion. 
It  has  fallen  to  my  lot  to  acquire 
familiarity  with  various  important 
state,  national  and  international  pres- 
entations of  the  achievements  of  those 
who  till  the  soil  and  tend  our  priceless 
[161] 


The  Black  Swans 


flocks  and  herds.  It  was  indeed  a 
far-cry  from  the  little  county  fair  of 
long  ago,  when  as  a  boy  I  helped 
collect  for  it  our  best  productions  of 
garden,  orchard,  pasture  and  paddock, 
to  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition. 
It  was  a  long  leap  from  my  first  Iowa 
State  Fair  at  Cedar  Rapids  to  the 
imposing  demonstrations  of  the  Ex- 
position Universelle  de  Paris  of  1900. 
There  was  some  contrast  between  the 
first  Fat  Stock  Show  I  reported  on  the 
spot  where  the  Chicago  Art  Institute 
now  stands  and  the  Royal  Agricultural 
Shows  of  England  I  have  since  at- 
tended. But,  after  all,  the  difference 
is  one  of  degree  only.  The  funda- 
mentals are  the  same,  yesterday,  to- 
day, tomorrow  and  forever.  It  is  only 
the  setting  that  is  different.  The  aims, 
the  objects,  the  purposes,  the  inspira- 
tions have  not  varied.  Then,  as  now, 
it  was  the  setting  up  of  standards  by 
which  the  year's  attainments  in  the 
primal  arts  of  peace  might  be  truly 
[162] 


A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 


measured  and  compared;  the  treading 
of  the  rich  fruitage  of  the  vines,  the 
celebration  of  the  gathering  of  the 
sheaves — a  custom  handed  down  in  va- 
rious forms  through  all  the  generations; 
and  one  that  shall  not  be  lost  so  long  as 
men  shall  sow  and  toil  and  reap. 

My  earliest  personal  experience  as 
an  exhibitor  was  with  a  pumpkin. 
Then  as  now  in  some  localities  it  was 
customary  to  plant  the  seeds  of  this 
humble  but  vigorous  and  prolific  vine 
in  the  cornfields,  and  one  year  as  the 
corn  was  approaching  its  maturity  one 
of  the  hundreds  of  pumpkins  hidden 
away  underneath  the  rustling  blades 
gave  promise  of  attaining  prodigious 
size.  Day  by  day  I  watched  its  steady 
progress.  It  looked  a  prizewinner  sure 
enough,  and  I  claimed  the  privilege  of 
entering  it  in  the  coming  county  com- 
petition. The  big  Percheron  horses 
and  pigs — the  latter  as  good  as  I  have 
ever  seen  since — were  being  pjrepared 
for  the  same  great  event,  but  my  hopes 

[163] 


The  Black  Swans 


were  for  the  time  being  wholly  centered 
in  that  blessed  "whopper"  out  there  in 
the  cornfield.  I  was  so  afraid  that 
something  would  happen  to  it  that 
I  could  scarcely  sleep  o'  nights.  Some- 
body or  something,  I  was  sure,  might 
break  the  fragile  stem  upon  which  my 
visions  of  winning  that  dollar  offered 
for  the  best  of  its  kind  on  exhibition 
all  depended.  Early  and  late  I  noted 
with  ever  increasing  wonder  and  satis- 
faction the  extraordinary  belt  line  of 
that  one  great  pumpkin  of  its  day  and 
generation.  Nothing  like  it  had  ever 
developed  before  within  the  range  of 
my  very  limited  observation,  and  I  had 
a  lot  of  trouble  trying  to  make  up  my 
mind  as  to  the  particular  use  to  which 
I  should  put  that  dollar. 

There  were  two  red  letter  occasions 
each  year  when  I  never,  never  had 
half  enough  small  change  available. 
One  was  Christmas-time;  the  other 
the  Fourth  of  July — saying  nothing 
about  circus  day.  Sometimes  I  had 
[164] 


A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 

managed  to  accumulate  for  those  rare 
events  as  much  as  a  dollar  and  a 
quarter,  but  a  dollar  and  a  quarter 
doesn't  go  real  far  when  you  are  in  a 
toy  shop  every  day  for  two  or  three 
weeks  before  Christmas  with  the  win- 
dows and  show  cases  overflowing  with 
marvelous  gaily  painted  tin  soldiers 
and  jumping  jacks  and  monkeys  that 
turned  wonderful  somersaults  over  the 
top  of  a  stick!  As  for  the  glorious 
"Fourth,"  fire  crackers  cost  fifteen 
cents  a  bunch  and  torpedoes  ten  cents 
a  bag,  and  if  you  commenced  when  the 
other  "fellers"  did  in  the  morning  and 
kept  it  up  until  near  noon  you  needed 
a  lot  more  than  I  was  ever  able  to 
purchase.  How  I  envied  those  pluto- 
cratic playmates  who  were  able  to 
enjoy  the  tremendous  thrill  that  at- 
tended the  firing  of  a  whole  bunch  of 
the  little  red  "crackers"  all  at  once! 
Then  lemonade,  peanuts  and  soda 
water  added  grievously  to  these  early 
financial  difficulties,  especially  on  those 

[165] 


The  Black  Swans 


halcyon  days  when  after  weeks  of 
anticipation  we  trailed  the  band  wagon 
of  the  circus  in  its  triumphal  tour  of 
the  village  streets.  I  usually  got  inside 
the  tent,  and  on  one  memorable  occa- 
sion had  a  little  change  left  to  buy  a 
ticket  for  the  "special  concert  to  be 
given  immediately  after  the  conclusion 
of  the  performance  in  the  ring."  Yes; 
and  by  some  special  Providence  there 
was  ten  cents  still  remaining  after 
lavishing  a  quarter  on  the  concert 
ticket,  for  which  I  presently  found  im- 
portant use.  The  clown  that  day  sang 
a  song  entitled  "Pulling  Hard  Against 
the  Stream"  that  for  some  reason  or 
other  made  quite  a  hit  in  the  sleepy  old 
town.  We  boys  as  a  matter  of  course 
were  arranging  for  the  usual  attempt 
at  holding  a  show  of  our  own  shortly 
after  the  circus  left,  while  the  excite- 
ment and  enthusiasm  were  still  in 
possession  of  our  souls.  We  nearly 
broke  our  necks  of  course  trying  to 
ride  a  horse  bareback  standing  up 
[166] 


A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 

and  testing  out  various  acrobatic 
stunts;  and  thinking  that  we  should 
sing  something  just  as  "them  reg'lar 
show  actors"  did,  I  had  spent  that 
last  ten  cents  before  the  show  left 
town  for  a  copy  of  the  clown's  own 
song  book.  For  some  reason  or  other — 
probably  because  I  couldn't  walk  on 
my  hands  or  successfully  negotiate  a 
big  tight-rope — I  was  picked  to  sing  a 
song.  So  I  promptly  memorized  the 
one  that  had  drawn  the  most  applause 
at  the  real  circus.  That's  how  I  happen 
to  remember  parts  of  it  even  now.  The 
music  was,  I  suppose,  an  utter  abomina- 
tion and  the  lines  pure  doggerel  of  the 
cheapest  sort.  But  it  was  apparently 
an  appeal  to  one's  better  nature,  each 
verse  bringing  up  at  the  end  with  a 
long-drawn-out "  S — o  th — e — n !"  lead- 
ing into  the  chorus: 

"Do  your  best  for  one  another 
Making  life  a  pleasant  dream; 
Help  a  worn  and  weary  brother 
Pulling  hard  against  the  stream." 


The  Black  Swans 


Now  I  cannot  say  what  there  was 
in  this  that  seemed  to  strike  a  respon- 
sive chord  in  the  breasts  of  that  par- 
ticular community,  unless  it  was  that 
nobody  out  there  in  those  days  ever 
seemed  to  have  much  money,  and  being 
thirty  miles  from  any  railroad,  only 
the  worst  and  cheapest  circuses  ever 
had  the  courage  to  invade  it,  and  I 
suppose  that  for  these  or  other  equally 
cogent  reasons  every  boy  living  there 
knew  in  his  own  heart  that  he  was  the 
particular  "brother"  alluded  to  in  the 
clown's  plaintive  ditty.  I  know  that  I 
for  one  was  beginning  to  rebel  against 
hoeing  potatoes  and  milking  cows  in 
red-hot  weather,  and  envying  those 
favored  of  the  gods  whose  only  duty 
was  to  take  care  of  elephants  and  tear 
down  and  put  up  tents  and  seats  and 
travel  all  night  to  the  next  town  and 
when  the  show  "busted"  get  no  pay. 

But  what  about  that  pumpkin? 
Well,  the  corn  was  cut  one  day  and 
there  lay  my  prize  pumpkin  of  stu- 
[168] 


A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 


pendous  girth  in  the  mellow,  late- 
September  sun  in  all  its  golden  glory. 
"They  can't  beat  it,"  I  said  to  my- 
self, and  to  the  fair  it  went.  And  do 
you  know  that  the  fool  judges  didn't 
have  any  more  sense  than  to  pass  it 
by  and  stick  the  ribbon  that  carried 
that  dollar  onto  a  fat,  heavy,  orange- 
colored  globe  that  wasn't  half  as  big 
around  as  my  own,  and  left  me  broken- 
hearted! Mine  was  flat  on  top  and 
bottom  to  be  sure,  but  any  tapeline 
in  the  world  would  have  convinced  any 
committee  with  the  ability  to  read 
plain  figures  and  measure  accurately 
that  I  was  clearly  entitled  to  win! 
And  so  came,  like  a  bolt  from  the  blue, 
what  still  seems  to  me  to  have  been  the 
first  truly  bitter  disappointment  of 
my  life.  I  have  had  some  other  dis- 
appointments since,  but  none  that 
made  a  more  profound  impression. 
And  father  got  his  too.  A  favorite 
trotting  nag  of  his  "broke"  badly 
coming  down  the  home-stretch  of  that 
[169] 


The  Black  Swans 


little  old  half-mile  track  and  was 
beaten  under  the  wire  by  at  least  two 
lengths  in  the  deciding  heat.  After 
listening  to  his  comment  upon  that 
performance,  and  the  unprintable  re- 
marks of  the  trainer  who  at  the  critical 
moment  had  driven  the  poor  little  bay 
mare  off  her  feet,  I  began  to  realize 
that  I  was  not  the  only  one  with  a 
grievance  against  the  world,  going 
home  that  night  a  sadder  but  perhaps 
wiser  youngster. 

This  incident  recalled  from  boyhood 
days  may  serve  as  well  as  any  other 
to  suggest,  even  if  faintly,  the  good 
actually  accomplished  everywhere  by 
these  competitions.  Experience  is  the 
only  school  whose  lessons  are  taken 
home  and  long  remembered.  This  one 
taught  me  several  things  worth  know- 
ing. 

There  is  an  old  saying  to  the  effect 

that  each  crow  fondly  thinks  its  own 

young  white;  that  is,  better  and  more 

beautiful    and    more    wonderful    than 

[170] 


A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 

any  other  crowlets  that  ever  happened. 
All  the  other  crows  know  the  truth, 
and  sooner  or  later  these  doting  par- 
ents discover  that  their  own  progeny 
are  no  whiter  than  their  sisters,  cousins 
and  aunts  of  crow-land. 

Another  thing;  the  casting  of  my 
mammoth  pumpkin  into  the  discard 
at  this  county  fair  taught  me  once 
for  all  that  mere  size,  mere  stature, 
mere  girth,  mere  bulk,  mere  pounds 
avoirdupois,  do  not  necessarily  mean 
the  most  quality,  and  afford  no  guar- 
antee whatever  of  superior  fitness  or 
desirability.  On  the  contrary,  when 
my  big  pumpkin  was  cut  open  it  was  so 
coarse-grained  that  when  chopped  into 
chunks  it  was  not  even  relished  spe- 
cially by  either  cows  or  pigs,  all  of  which 
simply  means  that  the  finer  fibers 
rarely  accompany  the  ranker  growths 
in  either  the  animal  or  the  vegetable 
kingdoms,  and  the  county  fair  enforces 
these  and  kindred  lessons  just  as  effec- 
tually as  do  International  Expositions. 

[171] 


The  Black  Swans 


Some  years  after  the  boyhood 
tragedy  herein  mentioned,  I  attended 
a  show  of  the  Royal  Agricultural 
Society  of  England  held  in  a  field 
adjacent  to  the  grand  old  park  at 
Warwick  Castle,  not  far  from  Leaming- 
ton. This  world-famous  exhibition  is  a 
"movable  feast,"  not  possessing  a 
permanent  home  and  equipment  as  is 
the  case  with  the  leading  American 
shows  of  like  character;  the  idea  in 
Great  Britain  being  to  bring  the  bene- 
fits of  the  show  home  to  the  very  doors 
of  the  people  in  all  sections  of  the 
country  by  shifting  it  from  year  to 
year  to  various  parts  of  the  kingdom. 
One  year  it  may  be  at  Bristol,  the 
next  at  Carlisle  or  York,  and  so  on  all 
around  among  the  larger  county  towns 
and  cities;  local  assistance  being  given 
in  each  case,  with  the  Royal  Society's 
funds  drawn  upon  for  general  expense. 
The  Warwick  show  of  which  I  speak 
was  held  under  the  Presidency  of  the 
then  Prince  of  Wales,  subsequently 

[172] 


A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 

King  Edward  VII.,  and  His  Royal 
Highness  was  not  only  present,  but 
took  the  keenest  possible  interest  in 
all  its  details.  I  knew  that  at  his  own 
favorite  Sandringham  the  Prince  had 
Southdown  sheep  and  Shorthorns  and 
other  useful  and  admirable  types  of 
domestic  animals,  and  that  he  took  a 
personal  interest  in  them.  I  was 
scarcely  prepared,  however,  to  learn 
at  Warwick  of  his  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  breeds  and  their  points  of 
excellence.  These  wonderful  exhibi- 
tions of  all  the  finest  types  for  which 
Great  Britain  has  so  long  been  famous 
are  usually  held  in  July  out  in  the  open; 
temporary  stalls  with  canvas  covering 
to  protect  the  animals  from  the  sun 
or  rains  being  the  only  shelter  pro- 
vided. On  the  opening  day  I  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  meet  the  Prince  in  that 
section  of  the  park  allotted  to  the 
cattle,  "doing"  the  show  on  foot 
incognito,  like  any  other  interested 
visitor,  in  order  to  avoid  the  crowds 

[i73l 


The  Black  Swans 


that  always  surrounded  him  when  on 
official  inspection  tours.  His  only 
companion  was  Sir  Jacob  Wilson,  one 
of  the  foremost  agricultural  author- 
ities of  his  day  in  Britain.  I  only  wish 
that  our  American  president  and  ex- 
presidents,  our  senators  and  cabinet 
officers,  our  men  of  prominence  in 
civic,  commercial  or  political  life,  could 
have  listened  that  day  to  Prince  Ed- 
ward's comments  on  the  animals  as 
they  were  shown.  His  interest  was  not 
perfunctory,  his  knowledge  not  super- 
ficial. He  knew  the  cattle  as  he  knew 
the  sheep  and  horses.  He  was  not 
necessarily  impressed  by  scale.  He 
knew  correct  and  faulty  conformation. 
He  was  pleased  and  gratified  beyond 
measure  to  see  such  a  marvelous 
presentation  of  England's  pastoral 
wealth.  He  was  more  capable  of 
judging  in  the  prize-ring  than  thou- 
sands of  American  farmers  even,  saying 
nothing  of  the  conceded  incapacity  in 
such  important  matters  among  those 

[i74] 


A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 

who  are  most  conspicuous  in  the  social 
and  pictorial  columns  of  the  American 
press. 

I  use  this  case  of  the  late  King 
Edward  merely  to  illustrate  a  broad 
national  difference  of  viewpoint  in 
respect  to  certain  things  lying  at  the 
very  roots  of  Anglo-Saxon  greatness. 
I  afterwards  visited  other  Royal  shows, 
and  always  found  the  landed  gentry, 
peers  of  the  realm,  members  of  the 
royal  family  and  government,  men 
whose  names  were  familiar  in  high 
finance  and  public  service,  mingling 
with  the  sturdy  tenantry,  the  herdsmen 
and  the  shepherds;  and  every  man 
knew  what  he  was  looking  at,  and 
could  appreciate  quality  wherever  pres- 
ent. They  cherish  their  well-kept 
herds  and  flocks  as  an  integral,  a  vital 
part  of  a  great  inheritance.  They 
regard  it  as  a  duty  as  well  as  a  personal 
privilege  to  thoroughly  inform  them- 
selves in  respect  to  these  truly  valuable 
national  possessions,  and  in  the  sun- 

[i7S] 


The  Black  Swans 


light  of  assured  patronage  and  gen- 
erous co-operation  from  the  highest 
sources,  even  the  humblest  "hewer  of 
wood  or  drawer  of  water"  in  all 
Britain  has  constant  inspiration  to 
stand  by  the  soil  and  its  choicest 
products;  and  so  it  is  that  "over 
there"  a  reputation  for  outstanding 
skill  in  the  gentle  arts  of  agriculture 
means  certain  reward  and  public  ap- 
preciation, and  father  hands  it  down  to 
son  as  a  prized  possession. 

When  John  McCormack,  the  Irish 
tenor  whose  voice  is  loved  by  millions 
of  Americans,  offered  his  services  to  the 
government  at  Washington  to  serve 
during  the  great  war  in  any  capacity 
the  President  might  deem  best,  he  was 
urged  to  sing  our  patriotic  popular 
songs  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land,  and  if  so  disposed 
turn  over  the  proceeds  to  the  Red 
Cross.  In  pointing  out  the  real  value 
of  this  form  of  service  the  President  is 
quoted  as  having  said:  "Somebody 
[176] 


A  Pumpkin  and  a  Prince 


must  keep  the  fountains  of  sentiment 
flowing!"  Woodrow  Wilson  is  an  apt 
phrase-maker.  Probably  no  president 
since  the  lamented  McKinley  has  pos- 
sessed that  gift  in  greater  degree,  and 
in  these  few  words  he  has  given  expres- 
sion to  a  truth,  the  important  bearing 
of  which  is  not  sufficiently  recognized 
by  so-called  practical  people. 

One  might  say  that  there  seems  little 
room  for  sentiment  in  the  "tending  of 
cattle  and  tossing  of  clover;"  that 
there  is  little  place  for  the  play  of  the 
imagination  in  the  effort  of  trying  to 
make  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where 
only  one  came  forth  before.  That  the 
evolution  of  new  and  finer  types  of 
grains  and  fruits  and  flowers  is  an 
occupation  fit  for  the  merely  patient 
plodder  only.  That  the  creation  and 
maintenance  of  choice  herds  and  flocks 
is  a  task  to  which  only  dull  minds  may 
profitably  address  themselves.  Wash- 
ington on  his  loved  Mount  Vernon 
acres  proved  the  hollowness  of  such 

[i77l 


The  Black  Swans 


assumptions.  America  seems  destined 
now  to  step  into  a  position  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth  that  bids  fair  to 
mean  world  leadership  henceforth.  But 
this  should  not  simply  mean  possible 
supremacy  in  financial  or  commercial 
enterprises.  Indeed,  if  in  the  unfolding 
of  our  future,  we  shall  give  to  history 
no  names  fit  to  match  those  of  Bake- 
well,  Eilman,  Tomkins,  Cruickshank 
or  McCombie,  we  shall  not  have 
recorded  full-rounded  progress  as  a 
people.  These  names  mean  nothing  to 
you?  Well,  they  should;  and  if  you 
don't  believe  it,  then  the  next  time 
you  come  to  Chicago  pay  a  visit  to  the 
Saddle  and  Sirloin  Club — preferably 
when  the  International  Live  Stock 
Exposition  is  in  progress — and  you 
may  then  possibly  share  with  me  the 
belief  that  not  all  the  great  Americans 
of  the  years  to  come — men  with  brains 
and  sentiment  and  patriotic  impulse — 
will  build  their  biggest  monuments 
either  in  Wall  Street  or  in  Pittsburg. 

[178] 


CHAPTER  XIII 

The  Flames  that  Clarify 

THERE  are  still  other  fires  all 
normal  people  like,  such  as  one 
that  I  have  just  helped  tend,  for  in- 
stance, the  burning  of  dead  vines  and 
stalks  and  weeds  and  leaves,  the  rem- 
nants of  a  garden  -which  for  weeks 
has  been  a  generous  provider.  How 
easily  the  hardened  roots  release  their 
former  grip  upon  the  rich  black  mellow 
soil!  They  know  their  race  is  run,  and 
for  the  most  part  give  up  gracefully. 
A  few  sturdy  ones,  however,  that  I  had 
thought  were  done  with  life  made  a  re- 
sistance altogether  unexpected,  but 
after  I  had  torn  and  broken  down  a 
plant  that  was  not  ready  yet  to  go, 
I  knew  at  once  that  I  had  interfered 

[179] 


The  Black  Swans 


with  some  well-formulated  plan  of  Na- 
ture, and  was  sorry. 

We  fancy  we  know  so  much  more 
about  a  lot  of  things  in  this  world  than 
our  common  Mother  knows.  We  are 
always  and  forever  assuming  to  im- 
prove on  the  universal  scheme,  cor- 
recting the  Almighty  and  his  laws,  and 
all  the  while  the  All-wise  makes  of  us 
and  all  the  best-laid  schemes  of  men 
(not  mice)  a  mockery.  We  can  by 
force  of  arms,  by  acts  of  parliaments, 
intervene  successfully  for  a  time,  we 
fondly  think,  with  the  general  plan, 
but  the  tables  on  which  men  carve 
their  edicts  crumble  into  nothingness, 
and  drifting  sands  entomb  the  walls 
of  Babylon,  whenever  Nature  cares  to 
resume  the  sway  she  never  really  has 
resigned.  I  had  no  business  pulling 
up  that  big  Helianthus  before  its 
seeds  had  fully  ripened,  but  that  will 
not  prevent  some  other  sunflower  from 
fulfilling  its  allotted  mission.  You 
can't  overthrow  Nature  by  taking  one 
[180] 


The  Flames  that  Clarify 


life  or  blasting  one  bright  hope.  You 
cannot  change  the  leopard's  spots  by 
caging  him;  neither  can  he  change 
them  himself,  try  in  the  jungle  as  he 
may. 

Enough  green  stuff  goes  on  the 
autumn  garden  fire  to  fill  the  air  with 
smoke  that  is  both  blue  and  fragrant. 
What  is  there  in  the  odor  of  the  burning 
of  dry  grass  and  stems  and  twigs  that 
makes  such  wide  appeal  to  human 
sensibilities?  Every  small  boy  knows 
well  what  I  mean  by  this;  and  every 
sane  small  boy  is  enough  of  a  primeval 
savage  to  scent  in  that  smoke  some 
far-off  simple  former  life  in  forest 
glens. 

Do  you  know  that  within  the  city 
limits  of  Chicago  is  one  spot  where 
touch  with  man's  natural  environment 
may  almost  be  attained?  Here  and 
now  I  want  to  pay  glad  tribute  to  the 
man  who  was  wise  enough  to  place  in 
Jackson  Park  that  Heaven-born  in- 
spiration called  "The  Wooded  Island." 

[181] 


The  Black  Swans 


I  suppose  it  may  have  been  Frederick 
Law  Olmstead.  He  had  a  lot  to  do,  I 
believe,  with  the  landscapes  now  so 
dear  to  all  who  know  the  former  site 
of  the  World's  Fair  of  1893.  But 
whoever  did  it  builded  his  own  great 
monument,  and  generations  yet  un- 
born will  seek  the  solace  of  its  isola- 
tion. No  road-way  crosses  to  it. 
Arched  bridges  lead  you  from  the  busy 
drives  across  lagoons  in  which  big 
forest  trees  have  plunged  their  roots. 
The  motors  and  the  trolleys  are  not 
there.  The  birds  know  it  well  enough. 
Trust  them  for  that,  and  squirrels 
once  scampered  everywhere  until  long 
protection  so  increased  their  number 
that  it  was  found  too  many  nests  were 
being  robbed,  and  they  were  banished. 
At  least  so  I've  been  told. 

One  day  last  March  when  the  sun 
had  whispered  something  to  the  trees 
that  made  the  willows  and  the  dog- 
woods start,  I  strolled  across  this 
Wooded  Isle.  The  grass  was  showing 
[182] 


The  Flames  that  Clarify 


faintly  green,  and  through  the  branches 
bare  the  lake  winds  roared.  You  see 
the  island  at  its  best,  I  think,  on  such 
a  day.  November  though  would  do  as 
well  as  March.  The  roses  will  be  gone 
and  the  summer  crowds  that  frequent 
it  will  not  be  there.  But  you  want  the 
tree-tops  bending  to  the  pressure  of 
strong  winds  if  you  would  hear  the 
organ-chords  that  fill  that  silent,  solemn 
sylvan  auditorium.  And  you  may  be 
so  lucky  as  to  find  the  workmen  burn- 
ing brush,  the  trimmings  from  the  trees. 
If  so,  the  incense  rising  from  those  fires 
will  do  the  rest.  And  when  you  turn 
away  and  retrace  your  steps  across 
the  arching  bridge  that  sends  you  back 
to  boulevards,  I  wager  you  will  almost 
wish  with  me  you  wore  old  overalls 
and  had  to  work  your  way  along  with 
axe  instead  of  pen;  at  least  for  one  long 
happy  day. 

If  you  leave  the  island  by  the 
southern  bridge  you  will  see  French's 
majestic  statue  of  the  Republic — the 

[183] 


The  Black  Swans 


recently  erected  replica  of  the  one  in 
staff  that  welcomed  the  nations  of  the 
world  in  Columbian  Exposition  days. 
The  fading  of  that  picture  is  Chicago's 
greatest  tragedy.  There  flowered  the 
architecture  and  the  allied  arts  of  all 
the  ages;  a  poet's  dream  of  one  short 
summer  night,  a  mirage  too  beautiful, 
too  evanescent  to  really  exist  save  in 
imagination.  But  it  served  its  splen- 
did purpose.  Its  profound,  refining 
influence  upon  a  people  none  too  famil- 
iar with  "the  beauty  that  was  Greece," 
the  "grandeur  that  was  Rome,"  and, 
may  I  add,  the  inspiration  that  is 
France,  long  since  became  a  prized 
national  possession.  Only  a  trace  of 
the  grand  aggregation  of  palatial 
structures  now  remains.  The  Fine 
Arts  Building  alone  of  all  the  exhibition 
halls  was  temporarily  preserved.  A 
great  fire  swept  away  most  of  them, 
thus  saving  a  laborious  demolition  by 
hand  labor.  And  the  Art  Hall's  days 
are  numbered. 

[184] 


The  Flames  that  Clarify 


Strictly  classic  in  spirit  and  outline, 
its  crowning  feature  the  low-set  dome 
copied  from  the  Campo  Santo  in 
Genoa,  it  is  slowly  but  surely  falling 
into  ruin,  and,  when  the  Field  Museum 
is  finally  completed  downtown,  the 
old  Columbian  relic's  last  days  will 
have  come.  Rabida  and  the  caravels 
are  still  with  us.  The  German  Building 
is  still  permitted  to  stand  near  the 
lake,  and  a  little  north  of  that  the  old 
Iowa  state  pavilion  may  still  be  seen. 
Upon  the  Wooded  Island  the  quaint 
artistic  contribution  of  Japan  yet  bears 
its  testimony  to  the  skill  of  the  artisans 
of  the  land  of  Fusiyama  and  the  cherry 
blossoms.  A  soul-inspiring  marshaling 
of  the  resources  of  a  world  at  peace,  this 
celebration  of  the  four  hundredth  an- 
niversary of  America's  discovery.  And 
as  I  write,  the  city  by  the  lake  is 
opening  the  gates  upon  a  very  different 
scene.  The  Government  is  showing  to 
the  people  of  the  Middle  West  a 
glimpse  of  what  is  meant  by  war — 

[185] 


The  Black  Swans 


the  war  that  means  the  re-birth,  the 
re-consecration  of  America.  And  this 
brings  vividly  to  mind  that  there  are 
other  fires  that  differ  from  all  others 
herein  mentioned;  the  sulphurous 
flames  of  Hell  itself  let  loose  by  one 
man's  hand  without  so  much  as  "by 
your  leave"  from  subjects  blind  to 
their  own  misconception  of  their  des- 
tiny and  deaf  to  the  voice  of  liberty  and 
law. 

It  seems  not  very  long  ago  I  made  a 
daily  official  call  at  the  United  States 
Government  Building  on  the  Rue  des 
Nations  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  in 
the  heart  of  Paris,  while  the  last  of  the 
series  of  Universal  Expositions  held 
by  the  French  was  in  progress  in  1900. 
The  world  was  not  yet  disillusioned. 
Germany  was  there  our  neighbor  on 
one  side,  and  Italy  on  the  other. 
Around  the  Champ  de  Mars  were 
grouped  the  buildings  that  housed  the 
products  of  the  arts  and  industries  of 
every  clime;  a  brilliant  artistic  triumph 
[186] 


The  Flames  that  Clarify 


of  French  genius,  with  the  flags  of  all 
the  nations  overhead.  The  flowering 
of  the  chestnut  trees  in  May  had 
ushered  in  the  great  event  with  the 
music,  pomp  and  pageantry  of  peace. 
Picard  and  Delcasse  gave  gracious 
welcome  in  the  name  of  France  around 
the  rich  Elysee  Palace  banquet  board. 
There  was  no  thought  in  any  mind, 
save  one  perhaps,  of  Verdun  or  of 
Vimy  Ridge.  The  German  High  Com- 
missioner was  there,  but  made  no 
reference  to  Louvain  nor  Liege.  The 
Russian  prince  that  sat  upon  my  left 
that  night  spoke  not  of  Lenine,  Bol- 
sheviki  nor  Trotsky,  and  on  a  certain 
other  happy  day  at  St.  Germaine  there 
was  no  mention  of  the  Marne.  The 
Bois  was  gay  with  pleasure-seeking 
crowds  by  day;  the  Champs  Elysees 
gleaming  fairyland  by  night. 

It  is  hard  to  conceive  the  changes 
that  these  eighteen  intervening  years 
have  wrought.  It  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  those  feted  guests  so  warmly 

[187] 


The  Black  Swans 


welcomed  to  that  concord  of  the  na- 
tions from  beyond  the  Rhine  could 
even  then  be  plotting  the  hurling  of 
unheard-of  giant  super-shells  from  fifty 
miles  away  into  the  very  shadows  of 
Notre  Dame  itself.  Thank  God  for 
Joffre,  Haig  and  Foch,  and  for  our 
Pershing,  and  for  all  their  men!  May 
they  never  sheath  their  swords  until 
those  flags  of  nations  once  I  saw  along 
the  Seine '  are  streaming  yet  again 
together  in  the  sky,  this  time  above 
Berlin,  with  that  of  Wilhelm  unter 
alles. 

The  garden  must  be  cleared  forever 
of  that  noxious  weed,  unbridled  power. 
The  poison  ivies  of  the  Prussian  wood 
must  be  consigned  to  all-consuming 
flames.  Then,  and  only  then,  can  our 
children,  and  our  children's  children, 
go  out  in  safety  through  the  world  to 
pluck  the  fruits  and  flowers  that  grow 
along  the  paths  of  peace  and  honest 
toil. 

[188] 


THE  DISAPPEARING  ROAD 


CHAPTER  XIV 
A  Farewell  "  Hike" 

THIS  morning  I  got  into  my 
"knickers"  and  a  good  stout  pair 
of  army  shoes  and  took  the  road.  It 
was  Saturday,  too,  and  the  golf  links 
looked  inviting  enough,  but  the  season 
was  rapidly  coming  to  an  end,  and  I 
preferred  a  tramp  outside,  because  I 
knew  that  within  a  week  we  would  be 
back  in  town  where  I  was  certain  to  be 
uncomfortable  for  a  time  among  the 
crowds  after  having  been  so  long  in  the 
open  country.  The  air  was  soft  and 
cool,  the  sun  just  bright  enough  and  the 
fields  and  hills  and  distant  points  were 
sleeping  in  an  atmosphere  that  told 
the  story  old,  yet  ever  new,  of  summer 
gone.  A  note  of  universal  gladness 
[189] 


The  Black  Swans 


attends  the  April  shower.  A  sense 
of  peace  and  plenty  fills  the  spirit 
when  the  wheat  and  oat  fields  and 
the  meadows  yield  their  harvests,  but 
today  the  rustling  corn  blades  and  the 
brown  and  silent  wood-lands  speak 
soothingly  of  rest  and  sleep  and  finished 
tasks. 

I  had  not  gone  far  before  I  overtook 
an  old  friend  of  mine  whose  business 
this  particular  day  was  evidently  the 
same  as  my  own — the  draining  of  the 
few  remaining  drops  still  hanging  upon 
the  lips  of  a  season's  emptied  cup.  I 
found  him  busy  with  a  bunch  of 
goldenrod  that  had  survived  most  of 
its  companions  of  the  roadside  and  was 
still  fresh  and  full  of  life.  I  stopped 
and  watched  the  busy  gleaner  at  his 
belated  work.  I  fancy  he  was  thinking 
that  the  sweet  clovers  of  August  were 
rather  better  producers  for  his  par- 
ticular purpose,  but  his  persistence 
apparently  met  with  some  reward,  and 
presently  he  spread  his  wings. 
[190] 


A  Farewell  "Hike 


A  little  farther  on  some  bumble  bees 
were  on  a  thistle  bloom,  and  sitting 
down  besides  the  humble  plant  that 
seemed  to  have  extracted  honey  by 
some  subtle  process  from  a  stiff  clay 
soil,  I  held  the  stems  within  my  hand 
and  with  a  glass  observed  the  searching 
quest  for  food.  The  head  of  a  bumble 
bee  is  not  in  general  shape  unlike  that 
of  an  elephant's,  and  the  comparison 
does  not  altogether  end  with  that, 
for  it  has  a  proboscis  of  some  sort 
that  finds  its  way  deep  down  into  the 
minute  recesses  of  each  pink  thistle 
tube.  No  possible  opening  escapes 
their  probe.  They  did  not  mind  me  in 
the  least  of  course.  When  a  boy  I 
used  to  kill  them,  and  pulling  their 
bodies  in  half  would  extract  the  honey 
sac  and  found  it  sweet.  But  I  have 
more  respect  now  for  life  in  any  form, 
and  did  not  resume  my  tramp  until 
this  industrious  black-and-yellow  trio 
had  lazily  taken  themselves  off  to 
some  other  lingering  way-side  growth. 

[191] 


The  Black  Swans 


We  now  approach  a  pasture.  The 
grazing  still  is  good,  and  in  a  corner 
near  the  road  a  group  of  dairy  cows, 
some  standing,  some  lying  down,  chew 
their  cud  complacently,  and  turn  big 
eyes  and  ears  my  way  as  I  come  near. 
They  are  mostly  Jersey  grades  and 
friendly.  I  stop  and  visit  with  them 
for  a  time.  One  of  the  younger  set  in 
particular  seems  sociably  inclined.  She 
comes  up  to  the  fence,  and  I  speak  to 
her.  She  may  be  of  the  pure  blood. 
Her  fawn-like  features  show  some 
breeding  at  any  rate,  and  her  shapely 
udder  and  well-placed  appendages 
thereto  are  full  of  promise.  Is  it  any 
wonder  people  become  attached  to 
and  fond  of  well-bred  animals?  As 
old  Jorrocks  of  fox-hunting  fame  used 
to  say,  "Give  me  a  bit  of  blood, 
whether  it  be  in  a  'orse,  a  'ound  or  a 
woman!"  Surely  it  tells.  Across  the 
way  there  is  another  bunch  of  cattle 
of  the  genus  "scrub."  Poor  things! 
They  are  not  to  blame  for  their  own 
[192] 


A  Farewell  "Hike 


wretched  personalities  and  very  limited 
capacities,  but  what  good  farmer  would 
wish  to  board  them  or  see  them  about 
the  place?  And  what  boy  growing  up 
in  their  company  could  ever  develop  a 
genuine  fondness  for  the  farm?  They 
neither  appeal  to  your  affections  nor 
make  any  good  return  for  the  valuable 
food  they  eat.  But  look  into  the 
intelligent,  friendly  eyes  of  this  little 
Jersey,  with  her  graceful  horns,  her 
yellow  skin  and  silky  coat,  her  dainty 
limbs  and  swelling  milk  veins,  and 
behold  one  of  the  accomplishments  of 
man  in  fixing  fast  in  animal  form  the 
useful  and  the  beautiful. 

It  has  been  many  a  moon  since  I 
milked  my  quota  of  an  old-time  herd, 
but  there  is  worse  employment  in  this 
world,  as  I  now  know.  Even  yet  it 
seems  to  me  I  hear  the  cow  bells  in 
the  lower  pasture  as  the  cattle  work 
their  way  at  close  of  day  up  towards 
the  gate;  for  they,  like  the  rest  of  us, 
are  creatures  of  habit;  and  I  recall 

[193] 


The  Black  Swans 


that  in  the  winter  time  each  individual 
member  of  the  herd  knew  her  own 
particular  stall  inside  the  barn,  and 
rarely  made  mistake  in  seeking  it. 
Each  knew  that  a  bed  of  clean,  dry 
straw  had  been  prepared  before  they 
entered  for  the  night,  and  that  all 
troughs  and  mangers  were  well-filled 
and  waiting.  And  when  the  storm 
went  driving  by  as  a  bitter  night  came 
on  and  the  big  bare  trees  along  the 
creek  were  lashed  and  coated  with  the 
driving  snow  or  sleet,  and  I  had  gone 
to  bed,  how  satisfied  I  used  to  feel  to 
know  that  those  four-footed  friends 
were  warm  and  snug  inside  and  did  not 
want! 

I  am  sorry  I  cannot  say  that  I  saw 
very  many  well-bred  animals  this  day 
of  my  October  gypsying  along  this 
country  road.  It  is  a  district  populated 
mainly  by  folk  of  German  birth  or 
blood,  and  whatever  of  thrift  or  other 
virtues  they  may  possess,  an  apprecia- 
tion of  improved  varieties  of  domestic 

[194] 


A  Farewell  "Hike 


animals  does  not  seem  to  exist  to  any 
great  extent  among  them.  With  all 
her  boasted  efficiency  and  "Kultur," 
Germany  has  yet  to  give  the  world 
anything  much  worth  while  in  the 
realm  of  animal  husbandry,  as  com- 
pared with  her  neighbors  of  Belgium, 
France,  the  Netherlands,  the  Channel 
Islands  or  Great  Britain.  I  did  see 
now  and  then  a  horse  that  might  have 
had  a  Percheron  sire,  but  these  were 
few  and  far  between.  And  this  re- 
minds me  of  another  country  road  I 
traveled  once  in  sunny  France  in  the 
charming  little  valley  of  the  Huisne 
(pronounced  "Ween")  where  white- 
walled  cottages  and  cosy  little  homes 
with  gardens  filled  with  wondrous 
flowers  and  sweet  old-fashioned  roses 
bloomed,  and  apple  blossoms  spread 
their  fragance  far  and  wide  just  as 
they  do  in  Normandy.  In  all  the  world 
there  are  no  greater  pets  than  those 
big  fine  mares  and  foals  attended  in 
that  favored  land  by  the  women  and 

[i95] 


The  Black  Swans 


the  children  of  each  household.  Is 
it  any  wonder,  these  big  honest  black 
and  gray  horses  of  heavy  draft  that 
you  see  in  daily  use  upon  our  city 
streets  and  cornbelt  farms,  are  as 
gentle  as  so  many  well-trained  dogs, 
that  almost  any  child  can  handle 
them?  We  are  in  France's  debt  for 
many  things,  and  not  the  least  of  these 
is  the  great  horse  that  is  such  a  factor 
in  the  moving  of  the  nation's  plows 
and  heavy  trucks.  You  would  not  of 
course  expect  to  see  the  Percherons 
numerous  in  a  Bremen  township.  You 
will  see  geese  though  and  horses  of 
which  you  could  not  be  very  proud, 
and  sometimes  women,  too,  that  are 
old  before  their  time  and  overworked. 
But  it  is  time  we  were  on  the  homeward 
trail. 

I  have  been  resting  as  I  have  thus 
been  soliloquizing  beneath  a  venerable 
cotton  wood  that  stands  at  the  end  of 
a  row  evidently  planted  by  an  early 
settler  in  these  parts.  These  are  of 
[196] 


A  Farewell  "Hike 


course  quick-growing  trees.  How  long 
they  live  I  do  not  know,  but  this  one 
of  which  I  speak  is  not  to  hear  its 
leaves  rattling  in  this  southwest  wind 
for  many  seasons  more.  It  is  a  giant 
of  its  sort;  I  should  say  near  ten  feet 
in  circumference.  That  is  conceding 
a  diameter  at  its  base  of  around 
three  feet.  Its  main  top  branch  has 
been  lost  in  some  gale  years  ago.  It 
stands  thus  crippled  and  decaying  in 
its  gray  old  age  awaiting,  like  any 
other  living  thing  that  has  had  its 
great  day  on  earth,  the  end  of  every- 
thing. A  decrepit  wretch  in  human 
form,  probably  from  the  county  poor- 
farm  over  there  on  the  other  road, 
went  by  a  few  moments  ago,  and  I 
classed  them  together  and  knew  that 
the  fate  of  both  differs  in  no  wise  from 
that  which  is  overtaking  a  brown  dust- 
covered  grasshopper  that  just  jumped 
feebly  by  me  on  the  grass. 

And  so  we  draw  near  home.     Not 
far  from  where  the  black  swans  nestle 

[i97] 


The  Black  Swans 


on  the  hearth  there  is  this  late  fall 
day  a  spot  that  has  for  me  an  infinitely 
greater  charm  than  any  picture  gallery 
of  which  this  world  can  boast.  It  is  a 
patch  of  woodland  that  men  have  not 
yet  touched.  Briars  and  burrs  and 
thickly-matted  bluegrass  contest  with 
all  sorts  of  underbrush  for  possession 
of  the  soil  beneath  the  trees.  You  will 
have  to  fight  your  way  into  this  tangled 
hidden  sanctuary,  but  once  inside  you 
will  feel  and  know  that  you  are  a  part 
of  all  of  it,  and  the  gray  clouds  floating 
away  there  towards  the  lake  shall  pass 
on  over  the  great  city  with  all  its 
miseries  and  leave  you  to  your  thoughts 
and  prayers  and  the  blessed  solace  of 
close  fellowship  with  Nature  clad  in 
beauty  that  no  human  hand  can  imi- 
tate nor  words  describe.  Wild  grapes 
and  woodbine  help  themselves  to  the 
first  supporting  branch  they  find.  Here 
and  there  the  burly  bodies  of  great 
oaks  speak  eloquently  of  strength  and 
patient,  silent  growth  through  the  un- 

[198] 


A  Farewell  "Hike 


counted  dawns  and  sunsets  of  the 
passing  years.  Through  the  tree  tops 
a  glimpse  of  sky,  part  blue,  part  gray, 
and  all  around  the  soft  rich  tints  of 
woodland  tapestries  woven  in  colors 
only  found  in  Nature's  northern  arbo- 
real laboratories.  The  intangible  grad- 
ations from  green  to  brown,  rose-pink 
to  richest  crimson,  from  pale  lemon  to 
deep  orange,  defy  definition  or  inter- 
pretation. And  tomorrow  other  tints 
will  show. 

As  I  now  return  to  the  cottage  walk, 
a  squirrel  frisks  by  on  his  way  to  the 
big  trees  in  the  grove.  Acorns  have 
been  falling  fast  for  many  days  upon 
the  lawn.  One  of  our  trees  in  par- 
ticular seems  to  have  produced  this 
year  most  bountifully.  And  today  we 
made  a  great  discovery.  Just  opposite 
our  bed-room  window  we  had  long 
ago  fastened  a  little  so-called  "wren- 
house"  to  one  of  the  biggest  burr-oak 
limbs.  For  some  reason  or  other  the 
birds  had  never  used  it.  I  imagine 

[i99l 


The  Black  Swans 


because  they  figured  that  predatory 
cats  or  squirrels  might  reach  it  too 
easily.  The  opening  in  this  tiny  house 
was  very  small.  We  had  observed, 
however,  that  some  creature  of  the 
wild  had  been  busy  of  late  enlarging 
the  entrance.  We  had  never  had  the 
good  fortune  to  catch  any  of  these 
woodmen  at  the  task;  so  were  un- 
certain about  the  scheme  in  view. 
Anyhow  some  one  had  now  crammed 
that  little  box  full  to  overflowing  with 
acorns,  against  some  day  of  need,  and 
we  of  course  credit  this  bit  of  real 
preparedness  to  the  squirrels.  None 
of  them  live  in  the  trees  about  the 
house,  but  if  the  coming  winter  should 
prove  as  hard  as  was  the  last,  this 
extra  store  might  very  acceptably  sup- 
plement the  main  larder  located  deeper 
in  the  woods.  So  much  by  way  of  a  les- 
son from  these  little  folk  in  the  matter 
of  saving  while  the  saving's  good. 

All   day   long   I   have   seen   flitting 
through  the  trees  small  birds  innumer- 
[200] 


A  Farewell  "Hike 


able  that  do  not  spend  their  summers 
here.  I  do  not  profess  to  know  their 
names.  They  are  from  the  north  and 
tomorrow  will  be  farther  south.  The 
annual  migration  is  at  its  height,  and 
we  ourselves  are  joining  in  it.  Those 
fat  bronze  turkeys  foraging  contentedly 
among  the  corn  shocks  would  migrate 
too  if  they  were  wise. 

I  took  back  with  me  at  the  close  of 
this  really  perfect  day  the  last  of  our 
dark-blue  larkspurs,  decorated  with  a 
lacy  spray  of  woodbine,  the  five- 
leaved  clusters  of  which  were  almost  as 
brilliant  as  Poinsettias  at  Christmas 
time.  And  that  was  the  last  floral 
offering  I  was  able  to  bring  this  year 
to  the  household  gods. 

The  darkness  settles  early,  and  as  the 
night  is  cloudless  I  improve  the  op- 
portunity, before  settling  down  to  a 
final  session  with  the  fire,  to  bid  the 
bright  October  sky  good-bye.  I  know 
perfectly  well  that  when  we  begin 
driving  up  and  down  the  city  boule- 
[201 1 


The  Black  Swans 


vards,  when  the  electric  lights  are  On, 
there  will  be  little  use  trying  to  visit 
even  with  the  Big  Dipper  itself,  saying 
nothing  about  Cassiopeia.  And  so  I 
pass  out  into  the  open  beyond  the  gate- 
way through  the  hedge.  Low  in  the 
east  old  Orion  is  rising.  Andromeda 
is  glowing  over-head  and  in  the  west 
my  steel-blue  favorite  Vega!  Stars 
of  the  quiet  autumn  night!  Change- 
less and  steadfast  as  thy  fires  shall  be 
my  love  for  dear  old  Dumbiedykes  and 
all  its  treasured  memories. 


CHAPTER  XV 

Taps 

THE  last  fire  of  another  year  is 
dying  on  the  hearth.  The  swans 
are  *  flying  low — now  very  low — and 
presently  they  will  fold  their  fluttering 
wings  and  pass  into  the  shadows  that 
shall  last  until  the  fires  of  yet  another 
spring  shall  be  rekindled  by  our  own 
or  other  hands.  'Tis  said  the  sweetest 
of  all  songs  sung  by  swans  are  always 
their  very  last,  and,  as  our  walls  re- 
flect the  gathering  gloom,  in  fancy  I 
can  hear  what  seems  to  be  a  fond 
farewell  to  all  the  joys  the  vanished 
hours  have  brought. 

We  are  closing  the  cottage  tomorrow. 
It  is  the  end  of  our  sixteenth  season 
within  its  walls.     Somehow  the  little 
[203] 


The  Black  Swans 


place  has  grown  to  be  a  part  of  life 
itself.  We  have  banked  the  fire  and 
locked  the  entrance  gate  and  left  the 
old  clock  standing  there  alone  each 
fall  with  ever-deepening  regret,  be- 
cause each  time  has  brought  the 
thought  that  this  may  be  the  last. 

We  always  trust  we  may  come  back 
again  to  see  the  hedge-rows  and  the 
iris  wake,  but  maybe  we  shall  not. 
The  cricket  that  until  tonight  has 
chirped  about  the  hearth  is  gone.  The 
frost  has  sapped  all  floral  life  outside. 
Above  the  general  wreck  a  drooping 
salvia  only  shows  its  scarlet  bloom, 
but  it  too,  like  Omar's  Bird  of  Time, 
"has  but  a  little  way  to  go."  All  things 
come  to  an  end  at  last,  even  the  most 
idyllic  days  in  rare  sequestered  nooks. 
Conditions  change,  and  circumstances; 
and  we  change  with  them.  Turns  come 
at  length  in  every  path. 

The  spring-time  and  the  summer  of 
our  days  at  Dumbiedykes  have  passed. 
That  much  is  sure.  The  autumn  now 
[204] 


Taps 

is  here,  and  the  same  unchanging 
laws  that  govern  in  the  garden  and  the 
grove  apply  as  well  to  those  who  plant 
and  plan.  A  few  short  weeks  ago  the 
lawn  was  clean  and  green,  well-trimmed 
and  comely.  Tonight  it  is  strewn  with 
the  oak  leaves  of  accomplished  fact. 
There  is  no  longer  quick  response  to 
the  discharging  clouds.  The  sun  has 
lost  its  power.  The  green  has  turned 
to  gold.  The  gold  is  on  its  way  to  dust. 
The  last  log  on  the  hearth  is  turning 
now  to  ash.  The  hands  of  the  clock 
still  move  forever  forward;  never  back. 
There  is  no  force  in  earth  or  air,  no 
alchemy  in  sky  or  cloud,  can  stay  the 
year's  decline. 

Would  that  we  might  live  those  years 
again!  There  has  been  much  that  has 
been  truly  bright  and  beautiful,  and 
many  golden  hours  have  set  an  impress 
on  our  hearts  which  time  shall  not 
efface.  And  yet  there  have  been  roses 
set  that  never  flowered,  and  weeds  and 
thorns  have  come  sometimes  where 

[205] 


The  Black  Swans 


finer  growths  were  sought.  There  have 
been  shadows  dark,  and  bats  and  fear- 
some cries  of  owls,  as  well  as  happy 
May-time  songs  in  leafy  bowers. 
Which  is  to  say  that  this,  our  life  at 
Dumbiedykes,  has  simply  been  the 
world-old  blend  of  sunshine  and  of 
storm. 

October's  mellow  haze  has  come. 
The  winter  waits.  We  know  not  what 
it  has  in  store.  Some  time,  somewhere, 
perhaps  around  the  evening  lamp, 
when  north  winds  howl  around  your 
Dumbiedykes  or  mine,  when  thoughts 
of  springs  and  summers  past  shall 
only  be  as  happy  dreams  that  linger 
long  in  memory,  perchance  we'll  meet 
again. 

And  so  we  will  not  say  "Farewell," 
but  just  "Good  night." 


PRINTED  BY  R.  R.  DONNELLEY 
AND  SONS  COMPANY  AT  THE 
LAKESIDE  PRESS,  CHICAGO,  ILU 


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